She watched his anger peak. His hands shook with it. Seething in his usual cold silence, he spun around and crossed into the sitting room. Barely two minutes later he appeared in the doorway, brandy in hand, and glared at her.
She gave him a sugary smile. He mumbled some swearword that made her want to goad him again and she quipped, “Fee fi fo fumble! Listen to Alec, he’s starting to grumble.”
He stiffened for a shocked second, glanced left, then right, and pinned her with his ducal glare.
She ignored him. He stalked toward her, placed the brandy on her night table next to her book, and slowly placed his fists on the mattress, leaning intimidatingly close. She tossed her head back in brave defiance. He would not intimidate her.
He almost spat out the words, “Did you just cast a spell on me again?”
“No.” She returned his look. “If I cast a spell on you, believe me, you’ll know it.”
“What the devil is the matter with you?”
“I’m upset.”
“Why?”
“You tell me why. Why did you marry me?”
“Is that what tonight was all about? You wreak havoc on a public play, in front of the prince, because you want to know why I married you?”
“No. Because I do know why you married me.”
His eyes narrowed for an instant; then he jerked her up against him. “Because of this?” His mouth covered hers in a passionate kiss. The kiss was her undoing. All her bravado crumbled under the power in that kiss.
Tears trickled from her closed eyes, and she fought for some fleeting bit of control.
He pulled back and looked at her, the anger draining from his face, too. He looked at her eyes, then searched her face. “What’s this, Scottish? Tears?”
She took a deep breath, and her misty gaze met his. She tried very hard not to choke on the words.
“She must have hurt you very badly.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Lady Juliet.”
He swore, closed his eyes for a telling instant, then opened them. He reached out to touch her shoulder.
Thinking the gesture one of pity, she turned away.
“Just what did you hear?”
“That you were to marry her, but she married someone else. And that it happened only the day before you married me.”
“That’s true.”
“Do you love her so very much?”
“No.”
“Please don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. I did not love Juliet.” He forced her chin around so she had to face him. “Why does this concern you? I’m not married to Juliet. I’m married to you.”
“You are married to me, but you don’t love me either.”
“I never said I did.”
The truth of his words made her ask harshly, “Why did you marry me, then?”
He tensed and straightened. “It matters not. We are married now.”
“It matters to me.”
“Why should it? You have a home, wealth, the protection of the Belmore title—things that are important.What more do you want?”
“I want love.”
“Love doesn’t enter into this. This is a marriage, not a play. I never made any promises of love nor will I.”
He turned his back to her as if looking at her was too difficult
“I wanted part of your heart,” she admitted so quietly she wasn’t sure he heard.
“Is that all you foolish women think of—love?” He spoke the word as if he were swearing. “Women speak of half marriages, pieces of the heart. Is this where you get those ideas?” He grabbed her book from the table and held it up in front of her. “From these damned books?” He shook it in her face and when she didn’t answer he turned suddenly and flung it into the fire.
Joy gasped, stunned. The flames burst upward, devouring the book. The fire crackled. Then there was nothing in the room but tense silence. She watched the blue and yellow flames, feeling nothing.
He looked at his hands as if he couldn’t believe what he’d done. Then he looked at the fire. “God Almighty.” He ran his hands through his hair, his expression bewildered and frustrated. “Am I mad or are you?”
“Am I mad?” She looked at him through narrowed eyes, then slowly raised her chin. “Yes, I am mad, good and mad.” She threw a hand up in the air. “Alec, up!”
He shot upward toward the ceiling shouting, “Bloody hell!”
She stopped moving her hand, and he jerked to a halt and hovered just shy of the gilded molding.
His face registered shock, grew pale with it.
“See?” she said, giving him a taste of a witch’s anger. “I used my magic on you, and I’ll wager you know it.”
He looked at her as if he couldn’t believe this was happening. Very slowly his color changed—pink to red to purple. “Get me down!”
“No.”
“I said get me down!”
She crossed her arms and shook her head.
“I’m your husband. You will obey me. Now.”
Tired of his arrogant orders, she waved her hand and he flew sideways.
“Bloody hell!”
She lowered him a few feet and heard him mutter, “I need a drink.”
She gave him a wicked smile and, with her other hand, sent the brandy glass up to the ceiling to hover a few inches from his hand.
“Your drink,” she said innocently.
He looked suspiciously at the glass.
“Help yourself,” she told him and watched as he slowly reached for the glass. She twiddled it just out of his reach.
“I do not find this amusing, wife. Get me down.”
“I thought you wanted a drink.”
“I’m warning you . . . ”
“Who—me the wife, or me the witch?”
His eyes narrowed.
“This is the wife . . . ” She slowly sent the glass toward his face and then up, up and up, until it was right above his head. “And this . . . ” She flipped her index finger. The glass emptied on his head. “Is the . . . ”
“Witch!” he said in a hiss, brandy dripping from his hair and down his red cheeks.
“Yes, I am, and now you have your brandy.” She flexed the fingers on her right hand. “Would you prefer to spit toads or grow a few warts?”
He pinned her with a damp look that said “you wouldn’t dare.”
She gave him her sweetest smile. “Tell me why you married me.”
“I wish the hell I knew!”
“I think you know exactly why you married me and that hardheaded English pride of yours won’t let you admit it.”
“Get me down.”
She shook her head.
“Now, wife.”
“Say it, Alec. Just say it!”
“Get me down.”
She’d asked for the truth, but had wanted him to say he cared. She could feel the tears burning her eyes. She could feel that empty hollow feeling begin to swallow her whole. Sighing defeatedly, she slowly lowered her arm until Alec stood on the floor just a few feet away.
“Damn you, woman! I’m the Duke of Belmore—”
“Oh, and don’t I know it. No one who knows you would ever doubt exactly who or what you are.”
“Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You work so hard at it, Alec. Believe me, everyone knows you’re the Duke of Belmore.”
He turned to walk away.
“Coward,” she whispered.
He ground to a halt and slowly turned around. His face was a red mask of anger. “You want to know why I married you? I’ll tell you. Because Juliet cried off, dammit! She made a fool of me! I refused to be made the fool by anyone.” He strode toward the door. He turned and looked right through her. “I married you because I needed a wife. You were there, willing and convenient.”
It took her a moment to find her voice. “Alec!”
He paused in the doorway and turned, his face as stony as his heart.
Guilt flashed darkly in his eyes just before he closed the door. She had her answer.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Atop the roof of Belmore Park, a random little breeze whipped at Joy’s skirts, and the squat heels of her shoes tapped a slow beat on the iron as she walked to the south corner. The silent days and lonely hours seemed to have melded one into the other. The play had been barely a week ago, yet it had seemed like a month. The morning after the play, had dawned without cold, rain, or fog, but instead a rare bit of February sunshine. Polly had awakened Joy from a mindless escape into sleep with a breakfast tray, a headache powder, and the news that His Grace had ordered her to read the morning paper. Glaringly circled was an article on the wondrous mechanical stage effects created for last night’s performance of Macbeth. No one, it seemed, would take responsibility for the production’s unexpected success until the prince announced his pleasure and his desire to reward the innovator. At last count, fifteen people had come forth to claim the reward.
She had closed the paper, drunk the headache powder, and listlessly allowed Polly help her into a traveling costume. Little more than an hour later they had left London— Joy, Polly, and Beezle in the carriage and the duke conveniently choosing to ride a spectacular stallion newly purchased from Lord Addersley. Again the fourgon plodded behind filled with baggage and two additional servants. Prior to the ball, Alec had agreed to Joy’s suggestion that they take Forbes and Hungan John to Belmore Park, where duties were plentiful and where Forbes could be given a position in which he would be less disruptive.
However, Joy might have welcomed a disruption to break the cold rigidity of her husband. He spoke only when necessary—usually to issue an order that needed no answer —nor did he await one. Once they arrived home, there was almost no interaction between them other than a silent dinner at opposite ends of the sixty-foot table. He left two days after their arrival to join Richard and Neil at his hunting lodge, leaving Joy with nothing to do but think and wander and seek solace in the gardens and on the roof.
She leaned against the balustrade and looked down, remembering how Mrs. Watley had received her unorthodox servants. One could hardly have said she welcomed them, but then, she didn’t welcome Joy to Belmore Park either. Once Alec had made it clear that Hungan John and Forbes were to be given positions, the housekeeper had wisely kept her dislike of them somewhat tempered. The same could not be said about her scorn for Joy.
The sound of Hungan John’s deep voice drifted upward from the gravel path behind the kitchens. He stood amid a group of servants, on a small grade where the path widened and led down to the massive Belmore stables; he was directing the enlargement and replanting of a vegetable garden. She caught sight of Forbes’s ancient white head and had to smile. A kitchen maid was helping him turn his coat right side out.
Her gaze shifted to the other servants, who worked to the rhythm of a quirky Caribbee tune. Two of the kitchen maids held up their aproned skirts and danced a jig down a row of freshly worked soil while the others hoed in time to the song. The kitchen door slammed with a curse and a bang and Joy caught a flash of white. Beezle scuttled across the yard, heading straight for his most recent prey—a long black braid. Hungan John must have sensed or seen him because he ended the song with a loud comment about weasel stew. Beezle whipped a quick turn and went after one of the stable cats instead, leaving everyone laughing.
Listening to Hungan John’s voice as he began a new song, she glanced longingly at the goings-on below. She stood far above them, watching them dig in the dirt and talk and laugh and enjoy a bright day that hinted at the coming spring. She had never felt more alone. Her hands tightened on the balustrade, and she watched the laughter, the joy, with the hungry eyes of one who’s been excluded, like a poor child being forced to watch Christmas from outside a locked window.
Odd, and sad, that she felt more companionship from her servants than from her husband. She rested her arms on the railing and sighed, wondering how long it would take her to fall out of love with that man. Obviously, it was going to take longer than it had to fall in love. For sanity’s sake, she had decided that her only option was to conquer her own foolish heart, since she couldn’t conquer Alec’s.
She wished her puny magic could cure a broken heart. ‘Twould be so nice to snap her fingers and no longer care. Yesterday she’d even tried a spell, although in retrospect she didn’t know why. She knew her powers weren’t strong enough to even begin to master a love spell, let alone trying to reverse a heart that hadn’t been controlled by witchcraft. The result of yesterday’s spellcasting had been a huge crack in the music room’s marble statue of Cupid. She blanched. She hadn’t found a way to fix that yet, but on the positive side she had managed to get rid of all the bright red broken hearts—hundreds of them—that had floated around the room.
So today, like the other days, she had taken refuge on the roof. Hiding. Isolated. She’d repeatedly heard that the Belmores answered to few, because of their title. Yet she, the Duchess of Belmore, cowered out of the way, hiding in a place that was supposedly in her home. Something was wrong, very wrong.
Sighing, she rested her chin on a fist and stood there for a very long time. Soon the fanciful sound of Hungan John’s deep voice had her head swaying and her fingers tapping. The warmth of the sunshine and the refreshing sound of the servants’ laughter had her thinking about her situation, and she came to a decision. From that moment on, she would no longer try to be the Duchess of Belmore. She did not like what she was becoming. She would be what she was, just Joyous.
She glanced down at the laughter below and took a fortifying breath of fresh air. With a new determination, she descended the stairs and ten minutes later she was on her knees and up to her elbows in freshly hoed dirt, planting parsnips and truly laughing for the first time in days.
Two hours and much dirt and refreshing laughter later, she stood, planted her hands on her hips, and surveyed the garden. Staked off in neat dark rows was a large fertile area that would soon provide carrots and rutabagas, turnips, lettuce and the like. She smiled. There was something kindred about the workings of nature that touched a witch in the most personal way. Nature, too, was magic—the loamy scent of peat-blended soil that was so strong one could almost taste it and the invigorating warmth of the sunshine that floated down and bathed everything below it. It felt good to work hard, she thought, pushing a straggly strand of damp hair from her sweaty cheek. Soon their labors would result in the plumpest vegetables ever seen at Belmore. And if they didn’t, she would sprinkle a little starry magic on the garden when no one was looking, just to make sure they flourished.
Dusting her hands off on her filthy, wrinkled gown, she rounded a corner humming and bobbing her head, her steps in time to the song, but she slowed when the squeak and rattle of a rickety wagon caught her attention. Pulled by two mangy oxen, the wagon rolled up the drive and the driver, a crusty old man in a fisherman’s garb—a woolen cap, naval coat, and high oiled boots—stopped near her.
“Be this Belmore Park?”
She nodded, again pushing the hair from her face with a dirt-smudged hand.
“I got something fer the Duke of Belmore.” He thumbed toward the back of the wagon.
“I believe deliveries are usually received at the back door,” she explained with a smile.
“Not this ‘un. This ‘un’sfer himself.”
“The duke isn’t here, but I’m the duchess.”
He drew his head back and squinted at her, then said in a belligerent tone, “And I be His Majesty, KingGeorge.”
Joy looked down at her dirt-caked dress, the muddy hem and shoes, the tangled strands of peat-flecked brown hair that hung over her shoulders, and realized the man had good reason to doubt her claim.
She laughed. “I never said I looked like one. Come. I’ve been working in the garden. Follow me, please.” She
marched up the front steps, the driver skeptically following behind her. The front doors opened, Henson holding them, and he gave her a quick bow. “Your Grace.”
She heard the old man snort in surprise, then mumble about the oddities of the gentry as he followed her into the drawing room, his cap suddenly and respectfully clutched in his gnarled hands. She quickly wiped her hands on her gown and sat down. “Now what have you brought my husband?”
He stood and gaped at the opulent room for a stunned second. His gaze went from a gold vase to the huge diamond-paned windows to the majestic portrait above the chimneypiece, then up to the painted ceiling. His mouth hung open. So she wasn’t the only one. She cleared her throat and he regained his composure only to fumble through his coat pockets for a crinkled envelope, which he handed to her and rocked on his heels as she opened it.
She unfolded the letter and read it, a little stunned herself. She looked up at him. “This states that my husband is to be guardian for someone named Stephen, at the request of Mr. Rodney Kentham upon his death.”
“That be the case, and his death were just two days ago.”
Concerned and unsure, she sat there for a minute, then explained. “My husband is gone for a few days, but I can send word to him to come home quickly. Who’s taking care of Stephen now?”
The man pointed to himself. “He be in the wagon.”
Joy jumped up, horrified to realize that a poor child had been left sitting in a wagon full of old broken furniture and other oddments. “We left a child out there alone?” she said over one shoulder as she rushed from the room. Skirts in hand, she ran down the front steps and around the wagon.
Relief washed through her when she saw for the first time the fisherman’s helper, a big humpbacked man who appeared to be in his middle twenties. He wore a wide-brimmed oilskin hat and apron and smelled of the sea. He sat hunched on a crooked willow chair in the wagon bed next to a couple of chests with a splintered rocker strapped across the top. His presence meant the child hadn’t been left alone. She stood on her toes and peered around the rubble in the wagon, thinking the wee laddie must have been frightened witless. “Where’s Stephen?”
With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection Page 35