A Hint of Wicked

by Jennifer Haymore

  Delia puffed behind her, nearly having to run to keep up. Taking pity on her maid, Sophie slowed to let her catch her breath.

  Had he truly intended to lock her in the house? For what purpose? Was his level of distrust for her so severe that he thought such lengths were necessary?

  When Delia seemed rested enough, she hurried back to the house, stormed through the gate, passed the now-sheepish guard without so much as a glance, and burst in the front door, ignoring Connor, who rushed toward her as she entered. She mounted the stairs, removing the pins from her hat with shaking hands. Breathing harshly, Delia scampered behind her, collecting the pins as Sophie passed them back. By the time she reached the top of the stairs, she’d yanked off the heavy hat, and she handed it along with her pelisse to Delia as she reached the door to the master bedchamber.

  “Return these to my room, please,” she said to Delia, whose cheeks were shiny with sweat and flushed pink. “And then you may have the remainder of the day off to rest.” She plucked off her gloves and passed those to Delia as well.

  “Yes, madam.” Her mouth agape, the girl curtsied, then turned and scurried away. As soon as her maid disappeared, Sophie turned back to the door and flung it open.

  “I will never—”

  But what she saw in Garrett’s bedchamber cut her words off as sharply as if they’d been hacked with a knife.

  Chapter Six

  Garrett stood in the center of the room wearing a tattered shirt, yellowed with age, and mud-caked trousers, shoddily made, well used, and frayed at the ankles. His feet were bare, but they were nearly as dirty as the trousers.Two men flanked him, one holding a measuring tape and the other with swaths of fabrics draped over his arm. One of the men had been speaking as she’d entered—the word

  “fashion” overlapped Sophie’s abbreviated tirade as the door banged into the wall.

  “Sophie.” Garrett’s voice was dry, but his eyes sparked with challenge. After a long moment, she found her voice. “Garrett.”

  A long pause ensued as they stared at each other.

  Finally, she asked, “Why are you wearing… those filthy garments?” Then she berated herself for asking such a foolish question.

  He glanced down at himself. “They happen to be all I own.”

  The two other men, clearly uncomfortable, shifted from foot to foot. Garrett raised a blond eyebrow at her. “Do you require my assistance for some matter of importance? As you can see—” He motioned to the tailors. “—I am occupied.”

  He wouldn’t give her an inch. Sophie straightened her spine. She was finished with allowing him to sidle away from confrontation.

  She marched up to him, stopping just an arm’s length away. “Yes, there’s a matter of great importance I must discuss with you. I insist.”

  “Well, gentlemen, it seems we will have to continue at another time. You have enough to occupy you for now, I imagine.”

  Both men snapped to attention. “Yes, Your Grace, of course,” said the tailor carrying the fabric samples. They bowed at Garrett and Sophie before scurrying about to collect their things and disappearing.

  Garrett just stood there, staring at her, his gaze never wavering. When the door shut, he was silent for a long moment before speaking. “I fear it’s true. I spent the last seven years a pauper. I imagine you will mock me for it. Or perhaps—” His lips twisted in a sneer. “—

  you will even pity me.”

  So many thoughts rampaged through Sophie’s mind, she found it difficult to form them into something cohesive. Why had he kept this from her? And yet it explained so much. She glanced around the room—her bedroom, with its familiar colors, textures, and smells. On the fringes, she could still sense Tristan. But Garrett’s strong, masculine presence had begun to edge him out.

  “Neither pity nor mockery, Garrett.”

  She reached up to touch his shirt. Her fingertips brushed over his chest. The fabric had grown stiff with a mixture of dirt and sweat.

  “I haven’t had time to wash it.” He wasn’t in the least apologetic.

  “I’ll order a bath for you, and the clothes to be washed.”

  “Don’t you think it would be inappropriate for the servants to wash clothing for their master that is far inferior to their own?”

  She shrugged. “It hardly matters.”

  Perhaps it was her imagination, but she thought she saw some of the tightness around his lips ease.

  Sophie rang for a maid and ordered the bath. When the girl had gone, she returned her gaze to Garrett. “Did you plan to imprison me in the house forever? If so, I’d suggest you hire more adequate guards. It only took a few words for me to pass that scoundrel you hired to imprison me.”

  His lips thinned once more, and she almost regretted her words. Almost.

  “I wish to keep you close. Until I’m certain you can be trusted.”

  “Trusted? Where would I go? What would I do?”

  “When you are at home, you can be watched.”

  “Of course. After all, what reason have I given you to trust me? I hurt every single day. I longed for you, and I missed you. But you don’t see that, do you? You saw one moment of my life, and from that singular incident, you judge my character and think you can interpret how I feel about you and what actions I’m likely to take. Do you think you know me, Garrett?”

  “What will it be, Sophie? You would have me in your bed one night and him in your bed the next? You know neither of us could live with such an arrangement.”

  “I don’t know. I only know I won’t allow you to destroy everything Tristan and I have built together.”

  “And I won’t allow him to destroy me.”

  They were at a stalemate. And, in truth, what had she expected? His generous approval of her keeping Tristan in her bed?

  She huffed out a breath. “Nevertheless, neither of us will allow you to bully us. Do you think that is a way to reestablish our affection for you?”

  “I have no wish to reestablish anything with Tristan James.”

  She ground her teeth to prevent herself from calling him a stubborn, stupid oaf. “You’re blinded by your anger. Stop and think, Garrett. Don’t be a fool.”

  “Think about what?”

  “Your behavior. I won’t be bullied, nor will I be ignored or treated like a child. I might have been a child when we married, but I’m not anymore. I’m a full-grown independent woman who has endured too much to be browbeaten by gun-wielding henchmen or blustering idiots who call themselves men. If you refuse to treat me with respect, then I have nothing more to say to you.”

  “I saw you—”

  “I know what you saw!” she snapped. “I was there, too. That was a private moment, and you had no right to interfere. But it has nothing to do with what’s happening now, or what’s going to happen between the three of us.”

  “What’s that, Sophie? What’s going to happen?”

  Her hands flew upward in frustration. “I don’t know! If you’d stop behaving like an overbearing ass, perhaps we could begin to work together to solve our problem. Shouldn’t we be endeavoring to learn more about one another? Shouldn’t we be attempting to rebuild our lives instead of tearing them apart?”

  He studied her with crystalline eyes. “Tell me how,” he said in a low voice. “Please, Sophie. Because I don’t know.”

  He stood in the center of the room dressed in tatters, his body strong, his stance powerful, his expression fierce. The raw emotion in his voice alleviated her frustration, and the anguished look in his eyes told her that he spoke the truth.

  “There’s so much I want to know, Garrett. All about the years you were away. Please tell me what happened to you and how you found your way home. Surely I deserve that much. And I’ll tell you anything you want to know about our lives since you left us.”

  She considered leading him into the adjoining sitting room, but she heard the servants moving to set up the bath there. In any case, he seemed more comfortable where he was. He still hadn’t mo
ved from the spot where he’d stood since she entered, but his fingers and shoulders had relaxed, and tension no longer radiated from him in waves.

  “You were a… peasant?”

  “A farm worker,” he said shortly.

  “Where?”

  He looked away from her, his jaw tight. “I’d rather forget those years. Start anew.”

  “I understand that. It must have been difficult for you. But I still need to know, Garrett, because it was difficult for me, too. What were you doing when I lay alone in our bed missing you? Aching for you?”

  He stared at her, lips pursed. But his expression softened, and she knew he was thawing. She turned partly away and placed her hand flat against the back of one of the rust-colored damask armchairs near the fireplace. “I used to sit here and think of you. Think of us together. Laughing. Talking. Making love…”

  He took a step toward her. His gaze seemed to spear right through her, stabbing deep into her soul. If he could see into her soul surely he wouldn’t remain angry with her.

  “I didn’t awaken fully until three months after Waterloo,” he said in a quiet voice. “Even then, it was… difficult. Many months passed before I was able to leave my bed.”

  “Who cared for you?”

  “The farmer I later worked for hired a doctor and saw to my recovery. I lived with him and his family for… a few years.” He cleared his throat, and his eyes skittered away. She knew there was so much he wasn’t telling her. “He was a Papist,” he continued, “I never understood why he endeavored to keep me alive.”

  In an abrupt, jerky motion, he lifted the shirt over his head. A ghastly, mangled scar marred his torso in the spot between his abdomen and his side.

  Sophie’s heart slammed into her throat. She sucked in a breath.

  “Gunshot wound. It festered, I am told.” He brushed a finger over the new scar above his eyebrow. “This bayonet wound wasn’t so bad.” He turned to the wall, and lifted his shoulder-length hair. Just above his ear was an angry red line—yet another scar. “But this

  —bayonet to the side of my skull.” He showed her the other ear. An identical scar marred his scalp there. “Both sides. These were the worst. They didn’t fester, but I think they took my memories.”

  Sheer relief that he stood before her, living and breathing, coursed through her. “Oh, Garrett. It’s a miracle you’re alive.”

  He turned back around. “So they told me. But somehow I did survive… though I didn’t know who I was. I knew I was English.” He frowned. “It wasn’t only my accent that told me so, but the fact that I never felt completely at home there.”

  “Did you know you were a gentleman?”

  “I’m told I was found naked—that they assumed I was a soldier, but they couldn’t know my rank. I knew I sounded like a gentleman when I opened my mouth and spoke English. At night, when I searched in vain for a memory, I imagined I was, but I was never certain.”

  He laughed mirthlessly. “And now I am no longer a gentleman, despite my esteemed title and blue blood. In fact, I think I lost it all on the battlefield. The blood I’ve regenerated is as base as the earth I nearly lost my life upon.”

  “Nonsense. You are the same man, just with different experiences. Your soul cannot change.”

  His lips twisted with cynicism. “Do you think so?”

  “I do.” She stared at him, realizing she hadn’t seen a man other than Tristan shirtless for many years. Her flesh warmed. She recalled Garrett’s unmarred, perfect body as if she had seen it only yesterday. Now he was large, imposing, still beautiful… but harsher and less innocent than the man she remembered. “Why didn’t you come home? To try to learn more about who you were?”

  “I tried. I saved as much as I could… but each time I was close to having enough, it seemed something came up preventing me from returning to England.” His brow furrowed, making the scar on his forehead pucker at its edges. “Odd, silly things, really. In any case, it never happened, and eventually I came to believe I was meant to be there.”

  “Do you still think so?”

  “No.” But his gaze faltered, and he stared at a spot on the wall beyond her. She stepped forward. “I don’t think so, either. You belong here. In London and at Calton House. With your family.” She reached out tentatively to touch his scarred side, but jumped away when her skin made contact with his. An electric sensation jolted through her body. Her heart beating erratically, she turned away to compose herself. Finally, she glanced back up at him. “Do they hurt?”

  He took a ragged breath, and she wondered if her touch had affected him as much as it had her.

  “Not anymore,” he said. “Sometimes they itch.”

  Tears pricked her eyes. He’d survived all this, and she’d been so far away, ignorant of what he was going through. “I will find you a soothing salve. Mrs. Krum can—”

  “It isn’t necessary.” His voice and posture were stiff. “I am accustomed to it.”

  Just then, a footman entered through the door to the adjoining sitting room. “The bath is ready, Your Grace.”

  When Garrett didn’t answer, Sophie said, “Thank you. That will be all.”

  The footman disappeared, leaving Sophie and Garrett staring at each other. Their discussion wasn’t over, by any means. Now that she had him speaking to her, she wouldn’t abandon the opportunity.

  “Well come along, then.” She turned brusquely, leading the way to the door connecting the rooms. She glanced over her shoulder to make certain he was following, and a little flush of victory spread through her chest when she saw he was.

  Steam rose from the large tub placed in the center of the room. She had requested the water piping hot—she remembered Garrett liked it that way.

  She busied herself with the soaps and washcloths set on a small table beside the bathtub. In truth, there was nothing to do with them. Making a show of choosing the right soap, she picked through the bowl over and over, keeping her back to Garrett to avoid watching him disrobe.

  Memories flooded through her. Their first time together, on their wedding night. He’d been so gentle, so thorough, even though he’d been nearly as inexperienced as her. The joy they’d found in each other, how they’d experimented and learned everything about the joining of a man and a woman from each other.

  All her senses on high alert, she heard the rustle of fabric brushing over his skin as he removed his trousers. The water splashed as he stepped into the tub, then he groaned as he lowered his big body down.

  When she was certain he had immersed himself in the water, she chose an almond oil soap from the bowl and turned around to face him. Diligently keeping her focus on the parts of him showing above the waterline, she smiled. “How does it feel?”

  His eyes closed, and he leaned back against the pillow attached to the top lip of the brass tub. “I haven’t felt anything this good in… a long time.”

  “Just rest for a moment. I’m going to send your clothes to be washed.”

  He made an affirmative murmur, so she gathered his trousers and went into the bedchamber to collect his shirt. She found his stockings and boots, both caked with mud, in a corner of the room. She rang for a maid and shook her head in bemusement as the girl took the garments between her fingers and held them as far away as possible from her body, her nose wrinkled in disgust as she left to carry them downstairs. Sophie found Garrett in the same position she had left him in, his eyes closed, his breathing deep. Quietly, she set a chair beside him and just watched, loath to awaken him. The man was exhausted. Had his life been so full of turmoil that he hadn’t found a moment’s peace? Goodness, it had taken him nearly a week to be measured for proper clothing. To go from pauper to duke within a matter of days must be overwhelming. He had gone through so much, so fast. When he behaved like a man about to lose his grip on sanity, how could she blame him? If she had experienced what he had, she would surely have gone mad long ago.

  In slumber, the grooves of tension around Garrett’s mouth and eyes re
laxed. His lips parted, and his chest rose and fell with deep, regular breaths. The furrow between his eyebrows smoothed, and he once again became the man who’d been the center of her world. Except for the scar on his forehead, he looked like the boy she would have moved mountains for. The youth she’d offered her body to. The man she still loved. His shoulders were above water, bulging with muscle, highlighted by the strong, straight lines of his collarbones. A few days’ growth of beard covered his jaw, hiding the tiny cleft in his chin. She remembered running her fingers over his firm skin, tracing his bones. She used to delight in touching him. Using her fingertips to explore him, memorizing every angle, every inch of his face. Lower, to his neck and shoulders. And still lower. For a brief moment, she let her gaze wander down his torso, to his sex nestling in the lightcolored hair at the apex of his large thighs. How she had once explored him there. As a virgin, she’d been curious and fascinated by this strange appendage, enthralled by the feel of it as it hardened in her hands, in her mouth… And Garrett had encouraged her curiosity. She quickly averted her eyes, guilt squeezing at her chest. When Garrett’s eyes fluttered and finally opened, she watched as his focus settled on her. She forced herself to smile at him. “Would you like me to wash your hair?”

  The tilt of his lips was hardly noticeable, but she remembered that look. It reminded her of the way he used to gaze at her, in the way that made her feel strong and invincible while at the same time causing a soft, warm buzz to spread through her.

  “Thank you,” he said, his voice still rough from sleep.

  She dipped a ladle in the still-warm bathwater.

  “Close your eyes.”

  He obeyed and leaned forward so the water wouldn’t drip onto the floor. She poured slowly, watching the rivulets run down his cheeks. Afterward, she would send one of the footmen in to shave him. Or perhaps she’d do it herself.

  Sophie lathered her hands, moved behind him, and plunged her hands into his thick blond hair. She sank into the task, rubbing his scalp with her fingertips, reveling in the feel of Garrett. Just touching him was almost recompense enough for the desperate confusion he had caused her in the past few days. Taking her time, she worked through every strand until it was soft and gleaming, stopping often to lather her hands with more soap. His gruff voice startled her. “You bathed me once before. I remember.”