With This Kiss (9 page)

Unable to adequately put her shock and dismay into words, she murmured only, “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?”

He moved to her side and gently brushed the weight of her hair off her shoulder. He bent and trailed a series of light kisses along the sensitive skin of her neck and collarbone. His touch served only to increase her panic. He couldn’t mean to take her tonight, could he? A shiver ran down her spine as her heart doubled its tempo. Her limbs felt brittle and weak, yet at the same time she was seized by an almost uncontrollable urge to flee.

“You said you were familiar with the ways of intimacy between a man and a woman,” he pointed out.

“I had no idea that such knowledge implied consent,” she replied, amazed that she was capable of forming any words at all.

“Our vows implied consent.”

“I was under the impression that was a wedding license we signed. Not a bill of sale.”

“Such modern thinking,” he said, making a
tsking
sound with his tongue. “I shall have to cure you of that, won’t I?”

“Furthermore,” she continued, “when I didn’t see you at supper—”

“You assumed I would fail to make an appearance for dessert.”

Julia failed to see the levity in the situation. Stoically she replied, “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Morgan shrugged. “You were wrong.”

“I need time.”

He paused, lifting his head. For a moment she thought she saw a flicker of compassion cross his face. But it vanished with the shadows of the night. His voice was unrelenting. “You’ll only make it worse, waiting and dreading. Better for both of us if we finish this now.”

His hands moved to the shoulders of her robe. A second later the garment pooled about her feet.

A shudder tore through her. “Please. Don’t.”

At last Morgan stopped, his eyes narrowed on her face.

Julia stood frozen in place, trembling and hating herself for trembling, unable to control it.

The moment seemed to stretch out forever.

Then she felt his touch once again. He caught her hand and lifted it to his mouth. Bending slightly, he brushed his lips against her knuckles, just above her wedding ring. She followed the movement, but all she could see were her husband’s broad shoulders and silky black hair. He straightened and dropped her hand. “Very well,” he said. “You have your reprieve.”

He turned abruptly and strode to the door, reaching it in four long strides. He pulled it open with a sharp tug, and then spun around to face her. Golden lamplight from the hallway spilled around him, casting his form in dark, menacing silhouette. “But know this,” he said softly. “You’ve made your bed, princess. And I intend to sleep in it.”

He pulled the door shut behind him and was gone.

Julia waited a beat, and then her shaking knees gave out. She sank to the floor in a puddle of quivering emotions. After a span of perhaps twenty minutes, one single emotion rose to the forefront. Resolution. What had happened was as much her fault as it was Morgan’s. She had assumed they had been of a like mind regarding their nuptial privileges and duties, but obviously she had been wrong. It was a simple mistake, that was all.

Nevertheless, she would not tolerate intrusions of that sort ever again. She would stick to her bargain and give her husband an heir — but when she was ready, and not a day before. First thing tomorrow morning she would tell Morgan so herself.

That decided, she was able to sufficiently compose herself to rise and cross to her bed. Unfortunately the rest she hoped to find eluded her completely. As the light of dawn broke through her windows, she finally sank into an exhausted slumber. It was a fitful sleep at best, full of tossing and turning, combating vague premonitions of dread.

Then, abruptly, she awoke.

Her heart pounding in her chest, she gazed about her bedchamber. She wasn’t sure what had awakened her so suddenly. Perhaps a noise, perhaps something—

Suddenly it hit her.

Faint, acrid, burning.

Smoke.

Morgan stood on the south lawn, watching the flames build. The vivid oranges, reds, and golds leaped and twisted, quivering before him in an erratic sideways dance that was oddly beautiful. As the blaze intensified, the blue-tongued flames shot higher, greedily devouring everything in their path with a hiss and a snap, like a nest of fiery vipers battling over prey. Then the fury of the flame abruptly peaked. With a final shooting spark the scorched tips spit against the sky and disappeared in a serpentine stream of dark gray smoke.

The smoldering heat of the blaze warmed Morgan’s face. Although he wasn’t certain what he was searching for, some insatiable urge prevented him from looking away. Some days it was the fire itself that drew his attention, the mesmeric beauty of the dancing flame. Other days it was a darker need that drew him. Like a fortuneteller guided by a crystal ball, he was grimly certain there was a message waiting for him within the flame. Something lurking within the heat and flickering light of the blaze. Something he hadn’t seen before, some part of the past he hadn’t acknowledged, or perhaps a glimpse into the smoky blur that was his future.

Occasionally he looked for no answers at all. He merely wanted to probe his memory of that writhing flame, to experience anew what he had seen and felt that foggy morning two years past. If he focused intently, he was there again; in the middle of the blaze, in the middle of those crumbling, burning quarters. He could hear the screams and feel the shrill terror that surrounded him. He could smell the sharp tang of kerosene as the flame licked the walls and ravaged the floorboards. At first his old wounds only tickled. Then the scars came alive, throbbing and burning as though the fire once again blistered his skin. Last came the vision. The tiny, dancing flame that reached out for him; the tiny, agonized face within the flame.

In moments like those he was gripped by an inconsolable sense of loss and incompleteness. Gripped by despair so overwhelming, the weight of it nearly forced him to his knees. He had been pulled back too soon. He wanted to return, to fling himself headlong into the searing inferno. The child was waiting for him within the flame. But this time he would make it. This time—

“Viscount Barlowe?”

Morgan turned abruptly, startled by the intrusion. His gaze fell immediately on Julia. So engrossed had he been in the fire, he hadn’t heard her approach. Judging by the anxious expression on her face and the tentative sound to her voice, she had been watching him, perhaps even calling his name, for some time. She glanced nervously at the blaze, then back at him.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“But you have, haven’t you?”

He hadn’t meant to sound so curt. But she had caught him off guard and in the midst of an intensely personal reverie. Had he the time to school his reaction to her presence, he might have chosen a softer tone. But it was too late now. The words had been spoken and duly registered. He watched as the wariness she had displayed earlier abruptly dissolved. She brought up her chin and regarded him coolly, adopting an attitude of regal condescension.

“My apologies, Lord—”

“I believe we can dispense with the formalities, can we not?” he said evenly, in what he hoped was a more amicable tone. “I prefer you address me as Morgan. With your permission I shall call you by your given name as well.”

She hesitated. Then, after what struck him as an inordinate amount of consideration, nodded in reluctant agreement. “As you wish.” They stood together in uncomfortable silence. After a moment she shifted slightly, turning away. “I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”

“Wait.”

“Yes?” She stopped in midstride, studying him expectantly.

Morgan had uttered the command impulsively. Now he found himself foolishly at a loss for words. He hadn’t wanted her to leave, but he couldn’t contrive a plausible excuse for her to stay. As he searched his mind for something to say, his gaze moved from her face to her attire. Clearly she had just been roused from bed. A lightweight cloak was tossed haphazardly about her shoulders, and from beneath it peeked her bare toes and the lace trim of her nightshirt. Her hair hung in a loose, disorderly braid that fell over her left shoulder. Its fiery richness was even more brilliant in the light of day, he noted, particularly becoming against the pale blue of her cloak.

Aware of the path of his gaze, an embarrassed grimace touched her lips. She lifted one hand in an attempt to restore order to her hair and said, “I smelled smoke…”

“Ah.” He gave a curt nod. “I should have mentioned it. Rubbish is collected and burned every Tuesday morning.” He gestured to the thick metal drum that had been constructed for the purpose of disposing of the waste. “As you can see, the flames are quite safely contained.”

“So they are.” A long pause, then, “I thought—”

“Lazarus had struck and the house was burning down around us?” he supplied.

Aware of his mocking tone, she coolly leveled her gaze on his. “Something in that vein, yes.”

“How very dramatic. Fortunately it appears we will not begin our marriage on so spectacular a note.”

Although his thoughts had not been moving in that direction, his words immediately called to mind an image of the scene they had played out together last night. Hardly an auspicious beginning. It had taken him hours to approach her, and even that small feat had necessitated gathering his courage from a bottle of brandy. Never in his life had he felt so grimly determined yet so profoundly inept. So cowardly and clumsy. And it had all been for naught. Julia —
his wife,
he reminded himself — had cast him out of her bedchamber without so much as an excuse or an apology.

In retrospect, he hadn’t expected the encounter to be enjoyable, merely bearable for them both. For him the matter had been a straightforward attempt to fulfill his marital obligations. Getting her with child as quickly as possible so that they might leave one another alone had seemed the best solution to their rather unconventional union. The finer points — such as how to deal with a wife who was so openly repulsed by his scars — left him blank. Nor could he really summon the energy to try.

They had made a bargain. He was married to this woman standing before him. The fact struck him in that instant as both ludicrous and gravely regrettable. But the deed was done now, and there was nothing either of them could do but make the best of it.

Apparently her thoughts had moved in the same direction, for she surprised him by saying, “While we are on the subject of our marriage, I thought a discussion of last night might be in order.”

“Indeed,” he answered coolly. His gaze skimmed over her cloak and nightrail once again. “Have you breakfasted?” At the negative shake of her head, he said, “Why don’t you join me in the morning room in…” He paused, mentally calculating the time it took a female to bathe and dress. Given that the average man could accomplish the task in five minutes, he doubled that amount, tripled the sum, then hazarded a guess. “Thirty minutes?”

A worried frown touched her brow. “Yes, I suppose if I hurry…”

She turned away and moved toward the house, leaving him alone with the fire once again. But the blistering blaze had died down to nothing but heat and smoldering ash. Nor was he able to pick up on the thread of his earlier thoughts. Morgan frowned in irritation. His days had a neat, orderly rhythm that his new bride was already interrupting.

The Tuesday morning fire had become a ritual of sorts. His servants collected the rubbish and began the burning, then left him undisturbed to watch the flames. An odd habit, perhaps, but one he did not intend to give up because it might strike Julia as peculiar. He brushed the thought off with a mental shrug. The household idiosyncrasies would be made clear to her soon enough.

In the meantime — what? He thrust his hands in his pockets and gazed about the grounds, unsure how to fill the intervening thirty minutes. He had already read the morning papers, and there wasn’t time to retreat to his study to immerse himself in his business affairs, so he wandered to the stables. There he had a brief discussion with a groomsman as to the quality of a pair of young colts he had recently acquired, and he checked the condition of a mare who was nearly ready to foal. The discussion, although generally pointless, did serve one convenient function: by the time he adjourned to the morning room, Julia was already there.

She stood with a slight frown on her lips and an empty plate in her hands, contemplating a sideboard that groaned with a variety of rich dishes. Spread before her was a veritable banquet consisting of eggs, both scrambled and poached, potatoes, scones, muffins, biscuits, toast, porridge, cheese, sausage, bacon, kidneys, oysters, fruit, jellies, marmalades, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate.

As he entered, she glanced up at him and arched one delicate auburn brow. “You must be ravenous in the mornings.”

He helped himself to a cup of tea, and then took a seat in his customary chair at the head of the large oval table. “Actually I rarely eat before noon. But as I didn’t know your preferences, I had Cook prepare—”

“One of everything,” she supplied with a small smile.

He shrugged. “Perhaps you’ll find the time later to let Cook know what you like.”

“I shall,” she agreed easily. “It looks wonderful, but in future she needn’t bother. Tea and toast suit me just fine.” That said, she dabbed a light pat of butter on her toast and moved to join him at the table.

His gaze followed her as she moved. Although she had attended her toilette and donned her clothing, the result was hardly an improvement. She wore a drab gown of coarse brown bombazine, over which hung a badly stained white linen apron. A crudely knit mobcap covered her hair; the fingers of her gloves reached her knuckles and went no further.

“If it was your intent that by dressing as a fishmonger’s wife I might set a clothing allowance for you,” he said, “you may consider your plan a success. Will one hundred pounds a month be adequate?”

She sipped her tea and regarded him levelly. “Quite generous, actually. But that was not my intent at all. I am perfectly satisfied with my wardrobe.”