He offered her his arm, looking uncomfortable. “I’m aware it should have been done well before now.”
“Yes,” she agreed, not allowing him to escape her censure entirely, for even though they had created a tentative truce, it hadn’t swept away a year of his bad behavior. “It most certainly should have.”
A wry smile curved his lips as they walked to the entrance. “You’re not the forgiving sort, are you?”
“Only where forgiveness is well-deserved.” She kept her voice prim. She did not wish him to think that lovemaking was a panacea. Of course she enjoyed the wicked things he could do to her body, but that hardly meant she’d forgotten the stark realities of their union. Now that they were away from the dream world of Lady Needham’s party, it was easier for their difficulties to reemerge.
“Is there a way it can be earned?”
Their shoes crunched on the gravel in time. Despite her caution, she was enjoying this slice of life as it could have been for the two of them, as it perhaps would have been had he not already found love elsewhere. She had to admit that she longed for the simplicity of companionship, the ease of friendship, that she knew some women found with their husbands. Was it too late for her and Simon? She very much wished to believe that it was not, but she feared the opposite.
Maggie considered his question then, forcing her mind to the conversation at hand rather than the emotions surging through her at this odd homecoming. “Do you wish to earn my forgiveness? Truly?”
“You doubt me?”
Maggie chuckled. “Of course I doubt you. A year of absence doesn’t procure a great deal of faith in a man, you know.”
“I daresay it wouldn’t.” He patted her gloved hand with his where it rested upon his arm. “I admire your tenacity, my dear. It’s so very American.”
“Thank you,” she returned. “I suppose.”
“Allow me to introduce you to the staff, and then we can discuss just how a sinful man might go about winning the forgiveness of a beautiful woman.” The glance he gave her was positively steaming.
She had an impression that his idea of a discussion involved sin and a bedchamber rather than a dialogue. But she was beginning to fear that if they continued spending all their time in lovemaking they would never become acquainted with each other in the proper sense. Since fate had seemingly conjured him, she wanted to know the man she had married. What harm would there be in it?
Merely the harm of losing your heart, rebuked an inner voice.
“We shall see,” she allowed as they prepared to cross the threshold. “We shall see.”
* * * * *
Simon had disappeared. Maggie frowned as she wandered through the immense confines of Denver House on her own. While they had spent the evening in heated lovemaking, he had left her bed before dawn. He had not appeared to break his fast, nor had he deigned to share an afternoon repast with her. Tea too had been ignored. She had done her best to ignore his abrupt and confusing desertion. She had made tentative friends with Mrs. Keynes, the housekeeper. She had come across several footmen and maids. But her husband was another matter. And by the time six o’clock had arrived, she was feeling rather perturbed with the man.
Truly, she was left with no recourse but to find him. She had already intruded upon a study, a library, several bedchambers and the drawing room, to no avail. Her dudgeon growing ever higher, Maggie clipped down the hall and selected the door nearest to her, throwing it open.
She was greeted by furniture shrouded in coverings and a sliver of sunlight emerging from a distant pair of windows. She was about to move on to the next room awaiting her inspection when it occurred to her that the curtains ought to have been drawn together. Instead, they appeared to have been deliberately opened to allow a small bit of light to enter the otherwise somber chamber.
Awareness struck her, a sense of being watched. She hesitated at the threshold, suspecting she had at last found Simon, but uncertain if she dared to enter. There was a solemnity to the chamber, as if it were cloaked in secrecy, that made her wonder if she was perhaps trespassing. After all, if he had hidden himself away, there was undoubtedly a reason.
But what?
She was startled to realize that she cared enough for him to seek an answer. Drat him. When had she begun to develop a tendre for the man who had happily run off with his mistress? He certainly didn’t deserve her affections. Or did he?
Her frown grew more severe as she stepped into the chamber at last, prodded by her self-disgust. She had thought she was made of sterner stuff. Maggie forced herself to recall that while his kisses melted her bones, he had treated her abominably. He was a cad.
She was in control. Yes, she was. She had to be, or else she was hopelessly in his thrall, and that simply wouldn’t do. Not for even one moment. Her husband could not be trusted. His latest misadventure had reminded her, in somewhat mocking fashion, of precisely that.
Double drat him. She cleared her throat, summoning up an impression of her fierce mother. “Simon?” Her gaze darted about, but she could see precious little other than the hulking silhouettes of chaises and settees that were likely long since out of mode. No answer. She strode deeper into the room, swearing that she could smell him. “If you are in this chamber, it would be in your best interest to show yourself at once.”
She attempted to peer into a dark corner, waiting for his response. None was forthcoming until, after what seemed forever, his familiar voice stroked over her senses like a lover’s caress.
“What shall become of me if I don’t?”
A shiver of anticipation danced over her skin. At last. He had certainly led her on a merry chase for much of the day. She spun in a slow circle, still unable to locate him. “Where are you?”
“Perhaps you ought to find me.” Though his voice was low and velvety, there was an undercurrent of humor.
He was amused, was he? Her gaze narrowed as she skirted what appeared to be an escritoire and ventured into the quadrant of the chamber where his voice seemed to emanate from. “You are a beast,” she informed him. “Have you no conscience?”
At her question, she shook her head, answering herself. “Foolish, wrong-headed me. Of course you haven’t a conscience.”
“I have a conscience,” he spoke up, sounding a touch indignant. “I simply ignore it.”
“I’m well aware of that, my lord,” she grumbled. Where in heaven’s name was he? She swept aside a particularly voluminous sheet of furniture covering, hoping to find him beneath it. There was only a wardrobe. “I am certain you haven’t heard your conscience since you were a lad.”
“That smarts.”
His voice was suddenly directly behind her. She turned to find him towering over her, a dark and inviting figure. “It is merely truth,” she countered, doing her best to curtail the breathless quality threatening to overcome her voice. Today of all days she did not want to show him a hint of weakness, for he was a hunter stalking his prey. She had few defenses against him other than her wits.
He stepped closer to her. “How did you find me here?”
“Fortune.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, praying he wouldn’t touch her and thereby crumble the infinitesimal wall she had built between them. “Or perhaps misfortune.”
“Did you miss me, my dear?”
She had, and the realization troubled her. When had he become necessary to her, as essential as sunlight and fresh air? “Of course not,” she lied. “Mrs. Keynes is uncertain of what she ought to send to dinner. Apparently, she doesn’t wish to incur your displeasure.”
“Indeed?” He was devastatingly near to her now. His hand caught her elbow, drawing her right arm away from her body. With practiced expertise, he trailed his fingers down the inside of her arm, catching her just where her sleeve gaped to reveal bare skin. He stopped at her wrist, raising her hand to his lips for a lingering kiss.
“What is this chamber?” she asked, determined not to be distracted by his blatant invitation to sin.
> “It is nothing now.” His grip tightened on her, in warning, she supposed.
She was undeterred. “What was it before now?”
Suddenly, he went from teasing to stormy. “I don’t wish to speak of it.”
“I’m sure you don’t. But there’s a reason for secreting yourself away in here,” she persisted.
He dropped her hand, pivoting abruptly to give her his back. “I abhor your American sense of persistence.”
“And I dislike your English sense of avoidance,” she countered. “You cannot hide forever. Tell me, Simon. You can trust me.”
“Can I?” He turned back to her. “In my experience, the fairer sex is furthest from trustworthy.”
She wished she could see his eyes, but the dimness of the chamber rendered it impossible. “Of course you can. I am not Lady Billingsley.” His former mistress had hurt him, Maggie knew.
“You most definitely are not.” His voice was solemn.
She couldn’t tell if he was paying her a compliment or an insult, but she decided on the former. “What is this chamber?” she asked again, refusing to allow him to dodge her question. There was a reason for him to have hidden himself away in a dusty old-furniture-laden room. She was determined to know what it was.
He was silent for a few heartbeats and she feared he wouldn’t answer her. Then, his gruff voice split the uneasy quiet. “It was my mother’s sitting room.”
His mother. Surprise flitted through her, mingling with compassion. She knew little of the previous Marchioness of Sandhurst other than the facts related to her by Mrs. Keynes, who had been a retainer at Denver House for nearly forty years. Simon’s mother had died in childbirth when he was a lad. Beyond that stark truth, she hadn’t much information.
She placed a hand on his arm, the need to comfort him an impulse as strong as it likely was wrong. “How long has it been closed?”
“Fifteen years, I suppose.” The breath escaped from him in a long, weary sigh. “I was but a lad. I’ve never had the heart to change it. This is the first time I’ve been inside this chamber since her death. Damn odd how so many years can pass and yet upon return, it’s as if no time has gone at all.”
His sadness was palpable. Maggie was moved by this rare show of emotion from her otherwise guarded husband. She yearned to take him in her arms, but she was afraid to allow her complicated feelings for him to deepen more than they already had.
She pulled her hand away, needing to put some reason and distance between them. “Memories are like a book you’ve already read. You may forget the details, but once you delve back into the pages, it all returns to you.”
He considered her through the half-light. “You’re surprisingly sage for a woman of your tender years.”
She was twenty-two, and she didn’t think that to be terribly young, particularly since he was only five years her senior. “I do have a mind,” she pointed out. While she was aware that it wasn’t always fashionable for women to possess sharp wits, she had never been wont to hide her intellect.
“And it is indeed a worthy one. I begin to see just how gravely I underestimated you, my dear.” He startled her by reaching out and caressing her cheek.
A small shiver laced through her at his touch. “Have you been hiding away in here the entire day?”
“No. I’ve been wandering. Confronting old ghosts, I suppose.” His thumb brushed her lower lip.
She stilled, her heart thumping madly. “Perhaps you ought not to confront them alone.”
“Christ.” He took her in his arms then, crushing her to him and burying his face in her neck. “How can you be so bloody kind?”
“I’m not kind,” she denied, trying not to be affected by his lips on her skin and failing horridly. “My younger brother and sister would attest to that.”
His grip on her tensed. “I was to have had a brother as well. My mother died bearing him, and he died two days later.”
She embraced him despite herself, putting aside her mind’s frantic call to protect her heart. How could she deny him solace when he was showing his humanity for the very first time? He seemed suddenly fragile, the complete opposite of the cool man she’d come to know. “It must have been very difficult for a boy to lose his mother and brother so abruptly.”
His face remained pressed to her throat. “My mother was a gentle soul. She deserved far better than to die alone in the countryside while my father was gadding about with his paramour.”
Maggie rubbed his back in soothing motions. He wore only a shirt, no jacket, entirely divested of his polite trappings. There was a wildness emanating from him, as if all the pain he’d buried was boiling to the surface. She suddenly felt as if she understood him—perhaps even better than he understood himself—for the first time.
“I’m sorry, Simon.” It was all she could say. Words could not rewrite his past, the sadness that had run through his life as if it were a river. Very likely, it had washed away much in its path.
“You needn’t be sorry. Life has its way of righting wrongs. My father died the year after in his mistress’s arms. Apoplexy, the doctor said. A fitting end.”
“Leaving you alone,” she finished for him. “Had you no one else?”
“I had myself. That was all I required.”
Maggie had possessed a childhood that, while far from perfect, had never been lonely. Her days had been filled with siblings and love, albeit with a healthy portion of bickering. Of course, there had come the inevitable awful realization that she must leave the comfort of her family behind, but that had only come later. She felt sorry for him, for what he must have suffered as a boy suddenly bereft. “You have me now as well,” she told him, hating that he had ever felt as if he were on his own, though she knew well she shouldn’t care one whit.
“Have I?”
She knew he referred to their agreement as much as to the confusing state of their marriage. She swallowed, wondering if she was pledging more of herself than she could give. But then she thought of the lad who had lost his mother, who had been left without comfort and love, and her heart crumbled for the boy he must have been. Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away. “Of course you do,” she said before she could think better of it.
“Why the devil are you here, Maggie?” he asked, pulling away to look down at her, his gaze dark and searching.
She wasn’t certain she knew what he was asking of her. She frowned. “You brought me to Denver House.”
“I’m well aware.” He paused, seeming to collect his thoughts. “What I meant to ask is why are you in this chamber with me? Why are you being so good to the man who never wanted you?”
She’d known, of course, that he’d never wanted her as a wife. He’d made that abundantly clear with his desertion and ensuing silence. But hearing him confirm it aloud still hurt. Drat him. Maggie stared, frantically searching for a response that wouldn’t divulge more than she wished to him. “I am your wife,” she said simply. “It is my duty.”
“Duty,” he repeated, his tone going lifeless.
Was it possible she had actually hurt him? Though she knew she ought to possess a heart of hardest stone when it came to him, she couldn’t quite bear to. He had a way of creeping into her heart when she least expected it. At Lady Needham’s party, they had fallen into each other’s arms little knowing what was to come when their true identities were uncovered. In so doing, they had become inextricably linked in a way their mere marriage had never managed to do.
“I don’t want to be your duty, Maggie,” he intruded upon her thoughts, his voice low and intense. “I want more from you.”
“How much more?” she dared to ask.
“I don’t know.” His voice was ragged, infused with the pent-up emotions undoubtedly roiling through him.
It wasn’t an answer to any of the questions thudding around in her mind, but it was somehow all she needed. She hooked an arm round his neck and pulled his handsome face closer to hers until their mouths barely touched. He didn’t r
equire further encouragement. With a groan, he claimed her lips in a long, searching kiss.
Maggie’s fingers sank into his hair as she opened for him. His tongue sank into her mouth and she sucked it, a hot surge of want nearly toppling her over in that moment. How was it that she could be irritated with him one minute, and yet in the midst of a dusty room, she could long for him so much the next?
He broke the kiss at last, resting his forehead against hers. His breath draped warmly over her lips. “Tell me how it is that you continually surprise me.”
She stared. “I could ask you the same.”
“Thank you for finding me.”
That gave her pause. She hadn’t anticipated his gratitude. “I figured you needed finding,” she told him with a small smile.
He dropped a soft, sweet kiss on her lips. “It would seem you have an uncanny knack for finding me when I need it most.”
“If you’re speaking of our meeting at Lady Needham’s, it was you who found me,” she pointed out, trying to maintain the tentative grip she had on her judgment. “You thoroughly trounced my train.”
“Trains are nuisances,” he quipped. “You ought to have had it tied up properly, by God.”
Maggie’s smile widened. “I did. You ought to have watched where you were placing your overly large feet.”
She enjoyed their banter, truly. She was starting to know him, and to her amazement, she rather liked him. He was at times a paradox, filled with passion and yet cold and calculated. He blustered without meaning it. He had loved his mother. He had loved another woman who had not been worthy of that love. She knew now that beneath his façade there hid the boy who had been left alone in the world, that the boy had grown into a man who still possessed that same fear of being alone. He was imperfect, it was true, but so was she. And his kisses made her mad. His touch set her aflame. Perhaps there was hope for them after all. Her rational mind was too afraid to hope, but her reckless heart was not.
“Now I’ve overly large feet, have I?” There was a grin in his voice.
Her Lovestruck Lord: 2 (Wicked Husbands) Page 10