Her Missing Marquess

by Scott, Scarlett

  For the second time that day, he crossed the threshold of his wife’s chamber. Into her domain. There had been a time when he had known without question that he was welcome within. How strange it felt to be an unwanted guest. Distance and time had somehow rendered this part of everything—their separation—easier to swallow. But now, he could not help but to take note.

  The door closed at his back with a snick, and he turned to face her. She was not as pale now as she had been earlier, but she was every bit as beautiful. He wanted to touch her. To take her in his arms as he had yesterday.

  He restrained himself, knowing he needed to take his time, for both their sakes.

  “You are not dressing for dinner?” he asked mildly.

  She glanced down at herself, as if just realizing she wore nothing more than her elegant robe. “I will not have dinner with a villain.”

  Had he expected anything less?

  He inclined his head. “Fortunately, dinner this evening is with me, my dear.”

  His attempt at levity did not appear to impress her. “You are the villain I was speaking of, and you know it.”

  “What if I am not the villain you think me?” he dared to ask.

  She raised a brow. “Your question is a moot point, Needham. You are every bit the villain I think you. Your actions earlier, in attacking poor Tom, confirmed it.”

  He busied himself by moving about her chamber, taking inventory now in a way he had not bothered to earlier when he had been fretting over her remaining abed for so long. She had changed the wallcoverings, he noted. Pink damask had replaced the former bright yellow. Bric-a-brac was scattered about: frames and flowers and small sculptures and books. Her writing desk was overrun with papers, the journal she perpetually kept sitting atop it all.

  “Let us speak about Sidmouth first,” he suggested, running a finger over a small ceramic container with a curious little lid. “You must put an end to your…relationship with him at once.”

  He hated to even think of what she shared with Sidmouth, let alone speak of it. Somehow, he had foolishly imagined she would have remained celibate, as he had. But whilst he had thrown himself into travel and penning accounts of his trips abroad, she had been throwing herself into the arms of another man.

  That ended today, by God.

  “I will not put an end to my association with Tom,” Nell clipped coolly. “He is the man I intend to marry when I am free of this unwanted union.”

  He stopped wondering at the purpose of the ceramic vessel and turned back to her. “I meant what I said yesterday. There will be no divorce. You have no grounds on which to petition the courts, and whilst I presumably do thanks to your affair with Sidmouth, I have no wish to put an end to our union.”

  There. This was all truth. The divorce laws were in his favor as a man, not hers as a woman. He needed only to prove she had committed adultery in order to bring a case against her and a lover. She, however, would need to prove far more.

  Which meant she had no case against him.

  “You committed adultery,” she countered. “And you deserted me.”

  “I have already told you I never bedded Lady Billingsley.” He attempted to remain calm and measured in his response. In truth, the ease with which she had believed the worst of him still rankled. “And neither did I desert you. I left because you asked me to go.”

  She had begged him, in fact.

  He still recalled that horrible altercation.

  The tears on her pale cheeks, the sound of her sobs. The anguish. They had fought. She had told him she had never loved him. He had broken nearly every stick of furniture in the drawing room. And then he had gotten soused. By the time he was sober enough to recall what had happened, he had known leaving was best.

  For both their sakes.

  “You did not have to go so far or for so long,” she told him quietly now, surprising him.

  They had both wounded each other badly. Their marriage had always been fraught with passion. But their love had been a tinderbox.

  He moved toward her, drawn to her as ever. “You would have welcomed me back?”

  Her expression shuttered. “That is not what I said, Needham. You twist my words.”

  Her braid still hung, fat and golden over her shoulder. Tendrils had worked their way free to surround her face. In her cream-colored dressing gown, she was temptation incarnate: soft silk, feminine perfection. He itched to touch her again. To haul her against him. To kiss the frown from her pout.

  Instead, he settled for stopping before her. “I have written you letters for three years, Nell. You have never answered any of them save one. What else was I to think? You bid me go, and I had already caused you enough pain. I had no wish to be the source of any more.”

  That, too, was truth.

  He had done penance as best as he knew how.

  But there had never come a day when he had not thought of her. When he had not longed for her. When he had not dreamed of returning. The anger and hurt he had carried with him for so long had faded in the wake of her announcement that she wanted to marry Viscount Sidmouth.

  That letter had changed everything.

  Nell’s chin tipped up, her expression guarded. “Why would I want more lies from you? I have already endured a lifetime’s worth. And now, the very least you can do is to set me free. Surely you owe me that courtesy, after everything that has happened.”

  He searched her gaze. “What would you have me do, Nell? Sue you and Sidmouth? Drag you through the gutters? Ruin us all? Is that what you truly wish?”

  Jack did not know why he had posed such a question. Even should her answer be yes, he did not have it in him to grant her what she wanted. He could not bear to cut her from his life. The last three years had only been made bearable by the knowledge that each day they spent apart was provisional. That he was always a steamer or a rail journey away from her, wherever he went.

  She stared at him, her lips parted. “I… I want to be happy again. That is what I want.”

  Her admission was akin to a knife to the heart.

  He could not shake the feeling that for the first time since his return, he was seeing a glimpse of the real Nell behind the mask she had donned.

  “I want your happiness as well.” Gently, slowly, he took her hands in his.

  They were cool and soft. She was not wearing the engagement and wedding rings he had given her. Instead, there was a new ring in their place. He ran his thumb over the diamonds and emeralds shaped like a flower.

  She stiffened. “Then let me free. Tom makes me happy.”

  “You are wearing his ring,” he said, needlessly, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

  “I am to be his wife.” There was no regret in her tone. Her gaze did not falter.

  He stared down at the hated ring, the symbol of what Sidmouth had already taken from him. Of what he hoped to steal next.

  “You are my wife, damn you.” He clenched his jaw against a rush of feeling. Jealousy. Anger. Confusion. Hurt. Wounded pride.

  “I do not want to be any longer.” She tugged, trying to escape him.

  He held fast, reluctant to allow her retreat. “We had a blissful marriage, once. Do you not remember how good it was between us, Nell?”

  She did not answer immediately, and for a moment, it was as if the pain, the bitterness, the anger was suspended. In the depths of her gaze, he saw the Nell he had once known. He thought he had reached her.

  But then her nostrils flared and her lips tightened. “Before or after I found Lady Billingsley in your bed?”

  He could hardly deny what she had seen. It was the truth. At one of their wild house parties, he had been so deep in his cups that he had been seeing double. In those days, his devotion to drink had surpassed his devotion to anything else, including Nell, and he had stumbled to his chamber with a bottle of whisky in hand. The last thing he remembered was spilling liquor all over his clothes and removing them, tossing them all over the Axminster.

 
When he had risen to a hand on his stiff cock, he had assumed the hand belonged to his wife. The lips on his, too, he had assumed were Nell’s. But the scent had been wrong. The caresses, too. In his befuddled state, it had taken him too long to realize the horrible truth, that Lady Billingsley, also desperately in her cups, had wandered into the wrong chamber…

  He returned to the present with a jolt. “I did not invite her there, Nell. What I told you then remains as true today. Nor did I bed her. I was sleeping when she entered my chamber. And she was too deep in her cups to realize she had entered the wrong chamber.”

  Nell tugged her hands from his grasp, and this time, he allowed it. “A pretty story. You explain your perfidy away with such ease.”

  She turned away from him, presenting him with the elegant lines of her back. The lush fullness of her bottom was on definitive display in her dressing gown. He followed her slowly, his strides determined.

  “Let us speak of that day now,” he suggested, trailing her to the opposite end of the room, where a trio of paintings he had never seen before hung, further evidence of her hand upon Needham Hall. “If we talk about it, mayhap we can finally move past it.”

  She whirled about, her braid flying over her shoulder with the force of her action. “How can we move past it, Needham? You betrayed me. You had another woman in your bed.”

  That, he could not deny. “Not by choice. I was cupshot, Nell. I admit that. We were having one of our wild parties. I drank far too much of the poison. But I promise you now, just as I did before, that when I laid my head upon my pillow, I was alone.”

  “You told me you had no recollection of going to sleep that night,” she reminded him, her voice as acrimonious as her countenance. “You said you awoke thinking Lady Billingsley was me.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Damn it, Nell. What more do you want from me? I have never told you anything but the truth. I went to sleep alone. I woke to a woman in my bed I thought was you. By the time I realized my mistake…”

  He allowed his words to drift off, for there was no point in finishing his thought. He had no wish to remind Nell of what had happened that night. The details were excruciating, even now.

  “I do not believe you, Needham,” she bit out, her eyes wide, her defiance almost palpable. “I did not then, and I do not now, three years later. I do not trust you.”

  There was the crux of the matter.

  She had claimed to love him once, and yet she had been only too eager to believe the worst of him. Her willingness to assume he had been unfaithful cut him just as deeply now as it had three years ago.

  He was reminded, abruptly, brutally, of why he had remained abroad for three years. This interminable warfare with her was intolerable.

  “Am I to trust you?” he asked, looking back at the ring upon her finger, the surest symbol of her disloyalty, aside from the sight of her embracing Sidmouth earlier. “You have been welcoming another man into your bed in my absence, and you are wearing his ring on your finger even now, though I am the man to whom you are eternally bound.”

  Her lip curled. “Not eternally. There is divorce.”

  “Unacceptable,” he bit out, trembling with rage.

  This was the scene he had hoped to avoid.

  They were as caustic to each other as ever, it would seem. From great passion also came great hatred and great ruin.

  To say nothing of great pain.

  “I do not want to be chained to you any longer, Needham,” Nell spat. “I do not know how to make that any more apparent than I already have. I want to marry Tom. He is the man I wish to spend the rest of my life with.”

  He shook his head, refusing to accept her words. He had seen her with Tom earlier. Sidmouth fawned all over her. Treated her as if she were fashioned of the finest porcelain. Nell had never been fragile. Nell was the woman who danced on the table, who always landed on her feet.

  Or in his arms.

  Always in his arms if he had anything to say about it.

  “Look me in the eye and tell me you feel nothing for me.” He clenched his jaw so hard, his head began to throb. “Go on, Nell. Tell me.”

  She said nothing, staring at him, seemingly speechless.

  “Tell me how you despise me,” he urged. “Do it, Nell. Tell me how I betrayed you and how you will never forgive me. Tell me Sidmouth truly makes you happy. I want to hear more of your pretty lies.”

  Her slap took him by surprise. Not so much the sting of her small palm connecting with his cheek, but the violence of her action. She had scratched him before, true. But she had never hit him.

  “You have no right, damn you.” She inhaled on a sob, and he knew he was the source of her pain, just as she was the source of his. “No right to come back here and make me feel…”

  He seized upon her words. “Make you feel what, Nell? Make you remember I am your husband? That you promised yourself to me and me alone? You did not marry Sidmouth. You married me.”

  She paled. “To my eternal shame. I was young and foolish, easily swayed by a handsome face. I should have known you were not the sort of man I could trust.”

  “You can trust me, Nell.” How could she not see the truth for what it was?

  She shook her head. “No, I cannot. You proved that to me better than anyone else ever could. I will not forget what I saw. You cannot explain it away. Nothing changes what happened. Perhaps you have suddenly found a conscience. Mayhap you have realized you want an heir. Whatever the reason for your return, it is futile. I will not have you in my bed. I do not want to be married to you. I want another.”

  Her assertions drove him to the point of madness. “Is that so? Do you mean to tell me you feel nothing for me?”

  “Nothing,” she echoed. “Nothing at all, Needham. Undoubtedly, that will be painful for your vanity, but that is the truth of it.”

  He did not believe her. Because he knew her. And he also knew the passion beating between them, even now.

  But he also knew he had pushed both of them enough for one afternoon.

  “Tell yourself that if you like, but we both know you are lying.” He sketched an ironic bow. “I will see you at dinner, darling.”

  Chapter Four

  Nell would be damned if she would dress and calmly descend to dinner with Needham.

  If he thought she would play the role of dutiful wife now that he had suddenly returned, he was wrong. Instead, she requested a carriage and prepared herself to visit Tom. She did not care that she was foregoing her evening meal, or that the drive to the village would be a good hour. The weather was decent, and the longer she was away from Needham Hall and her husband’s infuriating presence, the better.

  She had prepared herself with remarkable speed for her journey, her lady’s maid quite accustomed to whipping her into order in precious little time. She poked her head out of her chamber with precisely ten minutes until the dinner gong. With all her guests having been summarily chased by Needham, dinner was not the grand affair it ordinarily was. The corridor was empty.

  No Needham in sight.

  On a sigh of relief, she slipped into the hall, making her way down it and then the stairs. Through the grand entry hall with its centuries’ old weaponry gracing the walls. To the front door. Reeves, the butler who forever looked at her with an expression of thinly veiled distaste, politely told her that her carriage was waiting.

  With another look over her shoulder to determine there was no irate Needham looming behind her, she swept into the courtyard. Two sets of stone steps led her to the carriage. But when the door opened, the very man she had been seeking to avoid was already seated within.

  She stopped at the sight of Needham sprawled on the bench, his emerald gaze glittering at her with unabashed intent. Drat him. He looked perfect as ever, his dark beard shading his strong jaw, those full, sensual lips she should not remember kissing quirking into the same half grin that had once made her go weak.

  If only she had never married him.

  If
only she had never loved him.

  “What are you doing in my carriage, Needham?” she demanded.

  “Waiting to accompany you on your journey, of course.” His countenance was calm, as if he had not a care. “Where were you going, wife, and in such a hurry you intended to miss dinner?”

  She glared at him. “I was going to see Tom, of course. I would prefer to forego a meal rather than dine with swine.”

  He remained impervious, instead extending a gloved hand in gallant fashion. “I would never invite a pig to the dinner table. All the Marquesses of Needham before me would roll over in their graves. A hand, my love?”

  She ignored his offer. “You are not accompanying me. Get out of the bloody carriage.”

  “You are my wife.” His tone was light. “Where you go, I shall follow.”

  Anger spiked through her. “I do not want to be your wife, and nor do I wish your company on my journey. The last thing I would do is bring the chance of further violence to poor Tom’s door.”

  He quirked a brow, hand still extended, remaining immobile. “If you have no desire to bring violence to your lover, then perhaps you ought to remain at home yourself. Or have you forgotten your viciousness yesterday and again today already?”

  Her gaze settled on the scratches she had left upon his cheek, and she did not regret them any more today than she had yesterday. He deserved to experience pain. He deserved everything she had inflicted upon him and more, magnified a thousand times. That included today’s slap.

  Her eyes flicked back to his, defiance tipping up her chin. “If you remain in the carriage, I can only assume you would like to experience more. Perhaps I can give you a matching mark upon your other cheek.”

  He rubbed his cheek, his expression turning rueful. “Do your worst, wife.”

  How she wished he would cease referring to her as wife and my love and darling. That he would stop being so impossibly handsome. That his voice did not send a frisson down her spine. That the sight of his mouth did not still make hers tingle in remembered awareness.