Because what he needed more than anything was to remember his country awaited him. He did not belong here in England. He never had, and he never would. As long as the French occupied Spain, he could not rest.
For Maria’s sake. For Francisco’s.
He settled Catriona gently on her feet. Her hands remained on his shoulders, clutching him. Step away, he cautioned himself. Create distance.
But the scent of jasmine hit him, and he was instantly reminded of the tenderness she had shown him in the carriage. “You ought to get some rest, querida,” he told her.
His cock was already hard.
She leaned into him, her smile fading. “I do not want rest.”
He frowned. “Yes, you do. Today was long. Tomorrow will be just as arduous, and I am not certain what awaits us at Marchmont.”
He had been neglectful of the earldom, and this he knew. But he had entrusted matters to his stewards and his step-mother. He had never asked to bear the burden of estates and the livelihoods of so many people.
“Very well,” she said, whirling about and presenting him with her back. “Will you help me to open my carriage dress? I fear I cannot manage it alone.”
More temptation.
He ought to have drunk more ale.
It had been some time since he had aided a woman in the act of undressing. Presented with the elegant swath of her neck revealed by the upsweep of her hair, he could not resist skimming the backs of his fingers over her skin. She was so soft here. And warm.
He swallowed.
She shivered.
All the tension he had been so determined to avoid had settled upon him. The very air of the chamber had shifted, growing thick and heavy. Anticipation pulsed through him, settling in his groin. Need licked down his spine, fiery and undeniable.
Alessandro forced himself to find the closures of her gown, hidden cleverly within the fine muslin. One by one, they opened. He plucked at a bow which had been tied to emphasize her waist until it, too, came undone.
“Thank you,” she told him when the twain ends of her bodice gaped.
She stepped forward, severing the contact, and turned back to face him before stripping the sleeves from her arms and shimmying to allow the gown to fall. And then she stood before him in nothing more than her chemise, petticoats, and stockings. Her gown billowed to the floor.
“De nada,” he said, forcing himself to walk away from her before he gave in to the mad urge to seize her, take her to the bed, and make love to her all night long.
Instead, he loosened his cravat, stalked to the wash basin, and splashed water on his face, relieved to find it cold. He would need a veritable waterfall of it to cool his ardor.
Behind him, the unmistakable sounds of his wife disrobing could be heard. Soft rustles. Half boots being toed off. A sigh of contentment as the bed creaked and she settled within it. More rustling of bedclothes.
Each noise sent a tiny arrow of lust bolting straight through him.
“I am settled now, husband,” she called.
He did not bother to reply, merely splashed more water on his face. Alessandro took his time, removing his garments with care. Slowly. Until the steady sound of his wife’s breathing in sleep reached him. Only then, did he move silently toward the bed.
She had succumbed, at long last, to the arduous journey and the ale. Her hair was unbound, a dark halo fanned on her pillow. Grimly, he pulled back the bedclothes and joined her.
And promptly realized his wife was not wearing a stitch.
Cristo, this was going to be a long night.
He blew out the brace of candles he had carried to the bed, pitching the room into darkness, and willed himself to go to sleep.
Chapter Fifteen
For the final leg of their journey through Wiltshire to Marchmont, Alessandro deigned, at last, to join her within the carriage once more. Catriona did not bother to hide her displeasure with him as he settled himself on the squab opposite her.
Her head had only just begun to cease aching, which was his fault.
She had risen to a dry mouth, a swirling stomach, and her lady’s maid hovering over her, telling her Lord Rayne had implored her to get her ladyship dressed. They needed to depart. Her breakfast had been small and unforgiving. The haste with which she had been prepared had been most displeasing.
But her greatest frustration had not been in the sad state she had found herself by morning’s grim, disapproving light. Rather, it was because of her husband. He had been avoiding her, sidestepping her, and ignoring her for nearly two days straight.
And she had reached her limit.
“Why such a frown, querida?” he asked, as if he had not an inkling.
“You know why, my lord,” she returned, keeping her voice cool.
As she had ridden alone in the carriage for most of the day, her nose in a book she had not possessed the heart to read, a plan had begun formulating in her mind. A bold plan. A change of tactics.
Perhaps just what she needed.
If he wanted distance, she would give it to him.
And hope it would draw him nearer.
“You are displeased,” he observed. “With me?”
“Who else?” She pursed her lips, raking him with a cold stare. “If you do not mind, I would prefer to continue the rest of the way on my own in the carriage. Surely the box is more than suitable for your needs?”
“No.” His dark brows drew together. “The box does not suit for our arrival. My need for fresh air is at an end, and I want to spend the journey’s close right here in this carriage. With my wife.”
“Perhaps your wife does not wish for you to belatedly join her now,” she suggested.
He inclined his head, gazing back at her intently. She was losing her heart to him. Another small piece each day. Soon, there would be nothing left for herself. He would own it all.
But she would be damned before she would allow him to crush it beneath his boot or to simply cast it aside as he returned to Spain. Over the lonely course of her journey, she had made a vow to herself. She would not allow her husband to abandon her and their child. He may be winning the battle between them, but she had every intention of emerging the victor in the war.
“You seemed to have no problem sharing the carriage with me yesterday,” he said at length as the carriage rocked into motion and they began swaying down the road. “I do not see what should have changed betwixt then and now.”
What had changed was her realization she was falling in love with him. That the more she learned about him, the more determined she was to help him heal. To allow him to grieve his wife and son so he could move on from the past and into a future.
A future they could share together.
“What has changed is the way I have been looking at our marriage,” she said, putting the wheels of her plan into motion.
He raised a brow. “Oh?”
“I discovered I have been troubling myself over the task of making our marriage work until you achieve your goal and return to Spain,” Catriona explained. “In truth, I need to be concerned far more with what I shall be doing afterward. The time it takes for your objective to be achieved will be small. However, the rest of my life looms before me, and I hope it shall be long and full.”
He drummed his fingers on his thigh. “I see. And?”
She wished she did not notice how long and elegant they were. She also wished she was not recalling how they felt upon her. Touching her.
Do not think of that now, Catriona, she cautioned herself. You will stray from your course.
“It will be easier if we are to have a distance between us,” she said. “From this point forward, I think it for the best that we spend as little time together as possible. Aside from the carrying out of our marital obligations, that is. To that end, I really do think you ought to continue on the box.”
“No,” he bit out. “I will not.”
She feigned disappointment. “Very well. If you must remain, then perhaps you m
ight make our shared confinement worth my time.”
He looked at her. “Confinement, madam?”
“Yes. What else would you call being forced to suffer your presence in this carriage?”
A stuttered sound of outrage emerged from him. “I beg your pardon.”
“I would far prefer to beg yours,” she said. “You have made your position to me quite clear. I do apologize for not seeing the wisdom in it before now. But all the hours I have had to while away on my own have proved a boon.”
“I thought you were reading a book. The Malodorous Duke or some such rot.”
She bit her cheek to refrain from chuckling at what had to be his intentional confusing of the title of the book she had been attempting to read. The Earl of Rayne was not always as forbidding and grim as he had been yesterday. Indeed, she was treated to fleeting glimpses of lightness, a boyish air he must have once possessed. This gave her hope she could brighten his heart. Change his mind.
Mend his broken parts.
“The Silent Duke,” she corrected at length, “and I set it aside for now, giving me ample time to make discoveries of my own.”
He quirked a brow. “Such as?”
“How many questions I have for you.” She paused, studying him before she continued. “Questions I should have asked before now. For instance, I have been thinking about the time after I bear your heir, when you have already returned to Spain. How long will I be required to wait?”
“How long will you be required to wait?” His jaw clenched. “For what, querida? I am afraid I do not follow.”
“Yes, Lord Rayne. That is exactly what I said. Your hearing is commendable,” she drawled. “You mustn’t be so silly. Now, then, have you a length of time in mind, or may I carry on with my life immediately?”
“Carry on in what capacity?” he growled.
She was certain he already knew. His reaction boded well for her plan. “Taking a lover. Or perhaps lovers, I should say. I do imagine there shall be more than one.”
His countenance turned thunderous. “More than one, madam?”
Catriona tore her gaze from his and settled the drapery of her pelisse and skirts to distract herself. She had always been bold, but blithely informing her husband she intended to acquire a string of lovers was the sort of daring she had never yet attempted.
“Oh, yes.” She sighed. “I should hardly think one shall suffice. At least a dozen or so, perhaps more. Since I will be allotted so much freedom, it stands to reason I may as well take advantage of it. Does it not? I expect you to do the same when you are in Spain, of course. I will be most understanding.”
She stole a glance at him from beneath lowered lashes, pleased to note he was no longer drumming his fingers against his thickly muscled thigh but gripping it. In the absence of gloves, the ridges of his knuckles rose in stark contrast.
His reaction boded very well indeed.
“You will conduct yourself with circumspection, as befits a countess,” he said.
“Of course.” She paused. “I will be discreet.”
“Prudence is, of course, to be expected. I do not wish for my heir to witness a parade of lovers entering his mother’s bedchamber as if she were no better than a broodmare.”
“A broodmare, you say?” Compressing her lips, she held his gaze. “What a ludicrous thing for a woman to be reduced to. My future lovers will be well reminded I am a woman, with a woman’s heart. That I have feelings. I will choose my lovers wisely.”
His lip curled. “Perhaps this is a dialogue best reserved for another day.”
“This day seems remarkably suited to it.”
“Mierda! It does not.”
“Yes,” she insisted. “It does. Was this not what you intended when you interrupted my solitude?”
He was glaring at her.
She was just beginning to enjoy herself. Here, she thought, was a faint sheen of hope.
“What I intended when I joined my wife in my carriage was that we should together draw up the drive to Marchmont Hall for the first time.”
“Mayhap you should have thought of that before encouraging me to drink enough ale to satisfy an infantry brigade last night and then abandoning me before I woke for all the hours up until this one,” she could not resist pointing out bitterly.
“Ah, querida.” A small smile flitted over his sensual lips. “I begin to see. You are celosa, jealous. Was it the serving wench?”
Yes. And his endless attempts to create a divide between them. And his fierce love for his dead, first wife. And his determination to leave her.
To say nothing of her stupid, careless heart. What she had before her was more proof she was abysmal at finding a man who was capable of caring for her in the same way she cared for him.
But she offered him a smile just the same, determined to remain impervious. “Of course not. I am merely realizing I must plan for my future. Our situation will, of necessity, be concise.”
The thought made her heart ache. Never again seeing him, conversing only through letters… In a short span of time, Alessandro had become important to her. The connection they had developed was real, and she knew it. Only his own stubborn refusal to let go of the past was keeping them from a true marriage. Now that she had him, she did not want to give him up.
Not ever.
“You have not even given me an heir yet,” he said, his accented baritone cutting through the carriage with the force of a whip. “Plan for that first. Before you share anyone else’s bed, you must share mine alone.”
She almost shivered at the way he said mine, somehow making it laden with sensual promise. Still, she knew she could not relent. “I think a month should be sufficient. After I am increasing, you will go to Spain, will you not?”
He clenched his jaw. “That is my plan, sí.”
“When the babe is born, what if I bear you a daughter?” she asked next.
“Then I shall return,” he muttered. “This marriage does me no good without an heir to show for it.”
It required every bit of strength she had not to flinch. “But after the heir, I am free to do as I wish, when I wish, and with whom, just as you promised me. Yes?”
His eyes had darkened, becoming almost as black as his hair. “We will discuss this later, Catriona.”
“Why not now?” she asked.
“Because I find it distasteful to agree upon the terms of my wife’s future lovers when I have only tupped her once myself,” he snapped. “Does that satisfy you?”
Yes, she rather thought it did.
The sheen turned into a flicker.
Her hope would not be deterred.
“I suppose it must satisfy me,” she allowed, careful to infuse her every word with the greatest reluctance she could manage. “For now.”
He muttered something under his breath in Spanish.
Oh, how she wished she could understand it.
*
By the time the carriage rolled to a stop before Marchmont House, numerous realizations had become apparent to Alessandro.
One, his wife was trouble.
Two, the urge to thrash her unseen future lovers was as wide as a flooded river and every bit as dangerous.
Three, despite his best intentions, he was becoming increasingly obsessed with her mouth. Specifically, with the way it would feel beneath his. Four, he wanted to kiss her. And not just behind her ear or on the delectable bit of skin where her creamy throat met her shoulder, not over her throbbing pulse, and not even just on the sweet mound between her thighs.
Five, he was going to kiss her, unless he could rein himself in properly.
Six, his wife was trouble. And sí, that one was apparent enough and important enough, it required repetition.
Seven, Marchmont was no longer a reflection of splendor. When he had left it behind years ago, it had been a testament to his father’s architectural dreams and the prosperity of the Forsythe family over the centuries. But as their carriage had meandered through the familiar d
rive flanked by laurel and pines, he could not deny both the grounds and grand Palladian façade of Marchmont itself evidenced blatant signs of neglect.
And eight, he was going to hunt down his steward and beat him to oblivion.
But he could do nothing about any of these realizations now as he leapt down from the carriage he had spent the last few hours in lusting over his wife. The gravel drive was the same, though perhaps dustier. The castle-like arch through which they had traversed was covered in ivy. The hedges flanking the wings of the edifice were overgrown. The lawns of the park too were lumpy and unkempt.
A feeling of foreboding settled over him as he offered Catriona his arm and assisted her in alighting from the carriage. His legs were stiff. He was tired as much from his journey as from the marked changes his life had experienced in the last few months, and he could not shake the feeling that something was dreadfully wrong here, in the one place he had been reassured, repeatedly and most vociferously, that everything was so very right.
Catriona clasped his arm, cutting a lovely figure in her fawn pelisse and sprigged muslin carriage gown peeping beneath it. Marchmont’s imposing front stole her attention, and he eyed it now along with her. Somehow smaller than he remembered from his youth, the house was nevertheless sprawling and huge.
“This is Marchmont?” she asked.
“Sí, it is.” His gaze swept over the familiar details, which returned to him now as if he had merely blinked and then found himself standing in the same place, almost as if he had never left.
In truth, so much time had passed. A veritable lifetime. And he was not the same man returning now as the hopeful youth he had been when he had left.
Four massive Corinthian columns framed the front portico. Grecian deities were in abundance, statues standing watch from above. The entire edifice was a magnificent sight to behold. Except for the east wing.
The east wing looked as if it had been ravaged. The windows had been planked over, and the roof looked, even from below, as if it were in ill repair. Black stains marred the limestone.
And though he had sent word ahead, notifying the permanent staff of domestics which remained at Marchmont—the steward, the gardener, the gamekeeper, the parkkeeper, the small group of servants the steward had promised Alessandro he had hired from the nearby village to assist in the airing of rooms—no one seemed to be about. Indeed, for a building so immense and august, the quiet was undeniably eerie.
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