by Addison Cain
With the party's little trick over and the guests laughing merrily at their sport, the hostess rushed forward to properly greet the late arriving guest. “Mr. Harrow, we were beginning to give you up for lost.”
“The journey from London took longer than anticipated.” As usual, his words to the old woman were saccharine friendly and ill-meant.
With Gregory distracted by Mrs. Jenkins, Arabella took the opportunity to put distance between them, entirely unhappy he was there—hating that he'd shown up wearing her ring. Hating herself more for feeling something each time she looked at him.
Lilly's disappointed looks and sullen attitude earlier in the day made sense. Everyone had been expecting him—everyone but her. After weeks of silence and no letters.
Telling his tale in clipped phrasing, Mr. Harrow detailed the journey, taking a seat and accepting a draught of ale from a footman.
Lilly came to sit beside the man she admired, fawning. “We are so honored you rushed from town to attend our little soirée.”
The power of Gregory's eyes turned toward the angelic faced woman, his answer dry. “Indeed.”
Lilly giggled, and once again, Arabella wondered how on earth the girl could be so blind to his rude condescension. Or was she the blind one?
“It is such a pity that you missed the hunt.” With obvious adoration, Lilly enticed, “But the men will go shooting in the morning. Hopefully that will be acceptable.”
“I am afraid that I must away again in the morning.”
“You came all this way just to spend one night in our company?” The young woman was astonished, touched.
The man purred, the sound as cool as falling rain. “I simply could not resist.”
Arabella chose to ignore the conversation at her back and instead turned to the window for a moment’s peace. The sun was gone, night upon them, making it all the easier to see Gregory’s approach reflected in the window pane the moment he was able to break free of the group.
“You are the picture of health again, my love.” Standing as they were, no one could see him brush her fingers where the silver band lay poor and dull as he whispered. “But your hands are cold. A proper lady wears gloves in the company of gentlemen.”
“I should also be wearing a widow's cap.”
Her answer earned a wicked smirk, Gregory standing as imperious and immovable as ever. “But not for long.”
Daring to glance his way, Arabella felt her cheeks coloring. “Why?”
Deep pools of tar sat above an instantly unsmiling face. “Because you will be my wife.”
She had not meant to spit it out so bluntly, but there was no point in stopping. “I cannot marry you.”
“You will.” He was certain, his voice arrogant to the point it was clear arguing was useless. “You need not concern yourself with paltry details. I will let you have your way.”
Challenging him, her brows tight, Arabella tested, “You would pay for Hugh's education? You would raise him to a gentleman?”
By the way his lip curled, it was clear the very idea was beyond preposterous—that he hated it as much as he hated anything.
Seeing she had earned some ground, Arabella tried to make him see reason, “If you were not trying to force my hand, I could continue to draw the income to do such things myself. Can we not just continue as we are?”
The man did not hold a trace of softness in his bearing. “I have spent some time observing Lord Dalton and can assure you, your absolute ruin is close at hand. There will be no more widow’s share.”
Releasing a shaky breath, Arabella stammered, “I have no dowry, Gregory. In all my years married, I never conceived. There is nothing I can bring to you.”
With a taunting leer, Mr. Harrow countered, “I have very little interest in children or money, destitute Imp.”
Arabella could not help but roll her eyes at the outright falseness of his statement.
“I speak the truth. It was never riches that motivated me.” He leaned down just a little, the flash in his eyes intimidating as was the hidden grip of his hand on hers. “I will educate your boy, but I will not stomach him at my table.”
Raising her chin, defiant, Arabella challenged, “Yes, you will. And he will spend the holidays with us as my ward.”
Full lips thinned, Mr. Harrow looking equal parts irritated and amused. Before he could retort, another voice cut between them. Like a smooth moving fog, Lilly came to stand between their argument. “And just what has our distinguished baroness said to make you scowl so, Mr. Harrow?”
“I was commenting on her ring,” Gregory explained, face full of mischief. “A gift, she told me, you so kindly bestowed upon her.”
Lilly looked down at the slender fingers Harrow stiffly lifted and saw the carved silver band.
“I believe the baroness finds herself worthy of such a token.” Gregory continued, “After all, she has taken to Crescent Barrows as no other could.”
Possessive of the house and in no mood for Gregory’s games, Arabella agreed. “I seem to get on well with the ghosts.”
“And the thorns?”
“I find their name fitting.” Pulled her bloodless fingers from his grip, Arabella took a step away. “And now I know better than to grab at them with my bare hands.”
Turning his attention to Lilly, Mr. Harrow asked, “Wherever did you find it, Miss Jenkins?”
“The ring?” Lilly shrugged, batting her eyelashes prettily. “A gypsy peddler at the fairgrounds.”
Laughing meanly, Mr. Harrow proclaimed, “How brave you are for bartering with such a one. The Romani are known to push a hard bargain.”
Arabella was not going to stand there and listen to nonsense. She left, ignoring the titters to seek out her favorite of the Jenkins siblings.
“At least Lilly will stop all her pouting now,” Lizzy whispered once Arabella was near enough to hear.
One of the other young ladies, a Miss Brand, grinned wickedly and added, “I wish you could have seen the look on Mr. Harrow's face when he came in and found the game. What a joke that you went straight to him!”
“Was he angry?” Arabella asked, smoothing her skirt to hide her irritation.
“He was startled, I would say,” Miss Brand teased, flaxen ringlets bouncing by her eyes.
Unsure if such a man could be startled by anything, Arabella looked Gregory's way again. He was smiling with Lilly, laughing lightheartedly in a way that he never laughed with her.
* * *
Dinner came and went. Arabella made it through the meal ignoring Mr. Harrow's indifference and Lilly's mean jibes. And when it ended, she made it through the compulsory sequestering of the ladies in the drawing room so the gentlemen might stay behind to drink port and misbehave. When the eleventh hour arrived and the chaperones ordered the girls off to bed, Arabella was more than happy to retreat—but not nearly as pleased as Lilly, who led the party to the lady's quarters without one complaint that the day's festivities were called to an end before the men returned to entertain them.
Arabella had been afforded the finest guest room in the house, and privacy that the lower ranking women forced to share rooms lacked. It did not stop Lizzy from coming to her and shooing off Magdala so that they might whisper nonsense by the candlelight.
While Lizzy braided the long waves of Arabella’s blood red hair, she droned on like a lovesick swain. “What is it like to kiss a man?”
Arabella understood that they were near the same age, but Lizzy had been sheltered, reared gently, and was not quite ready for the world of men. “It can be very nice, overwhelming even—which is why you must wait until you are married to entertain such thoughts.”
“I would so like to kiss Mr. Bosworth.”
Pursing her lips, Arabella teased, “From the way he was looking at you tonight, I do believe the sentiment is mutual.”
“Could you imagine if I were to marry before Lilly?” Wicked excitement flowed from the girl as she grabbed a pillow in a sly attempt to whack her friend
with it. “Her understanding with Mr. Harrow has been kept quiet for so long, I am amazed she has not already begun planning a trip with mama to London so she might buy her wedding trousseau.”
The pillow hit Arabella square in the face before Lizzy could see her look of shock.
Squealing, laughing far louder than a proper girl should, Lizzy exclaimed, “What if Mr. Bosworth proposed and we could all visit town together?”
Shaking off the blow, Arabella rubbed her nose and stammered the only thing she could. “That... would be interesting.”
Whatever further jabber Lizzy shared, Arabella was deaf to it. All she could think of was Gregory's engagement to another. Seeing her friend had grown tired, Lizzy planted a quick kiss, slid from the bed, and scurried to her door, whispering her goodnight.
Contemplation before the fire turned the baroness’s stomach. Arabella knew Gregory’s habits. Lilly, usually the first to complain when fun was cut short, had wanted to go to bed... because she had an appointment with her fiancé. Even at that very moment she might be in Gregory's arms.
The feelings that came on the heels of such thoughts were awful, the sudden misery so consuming at first Arabella thought she imagined the sound of a key in her lock.
A soft scrape of wood and Gregory began to materialize in her periphery. Arabella stood, expression closed, and faced him.
Dark eyes ran over the look of her dressed for bed, enjoying the way the fire turned the soft cotton near translucent. That steady look of possession, the one that had drawn her in each time he leveled black eyes at her, for once only left her numb.
“My love,” Gregory cooed, stepping closer as if pleased to find her waiting. “You knew I would come.”
She would control this, she would not be cowed. Going to him, taking his hand, she pulled him to the chair she had vacated. “Please tell of London?”
She would need to know everything, his truth and lies, to undo the damage she had allowed to be done in trusting a man of no worth. Using his own trick against him, she kneeled before the seated giant and pressed her cheek to the warm, bunched muscle of his thigh.
But he did not speak, simply toyed with the shorter curls free of her braid.
Long minutes of growing frustration and she sighed.
“Do you really think I cannot see how very angry you are right now? That you could hide it from me, Arabella? What game is this?”
Her fingers gripped at his legs, nails clawing through the fabric as he raised her chin.
Gregory absorbed the dispassion he found. “What has come over you?”
Flat, unfeeling, Arabella explained, “Oh nothing but the most passionate love, I assure you.”
“You are angry over how I garnered the key to the women's hall...” He shamelessly grinned, the beauty of his face made sinister by firelight. “You can't have imagined I would have gone to her after she gave it to me? How else was I supposed to learn the location of your room and get in quietly,” he enunciated the last two words in his infuriating way, “my love?”
Arabella offered her lips. “I must admit I am relieved.”
A lingering kiss, and Gregory traced a finger down the soft skin of her throat. “There now.”
Standing to walk away with a chilling smile of her own, as if it were all nothing, she offered in the most condescending tone she could muster. “Relieved to learn you are already engaged to Lilly. Let's not waste more time here, shall we? Please leave. I am tired.”
Out of the chair, with a firm grip on her arm, Gregory forced her to face him.
“Careful.” Offering a snide threat, Arabella hissed, “I do not believe Lilly would take too kindly in learning you were in my room.”
The face of a fallen angel contorted in rage. Voice low and monstrous, he growled, “She assumes, nothing more.”
“Do not lie to me!” Whispering savagely, Arabella argued, “You have had your fun. I will even admit that I almost believed you. Benjamin Iliffe would have called you friend. He might have even held me down so you could shove in.”
Instantaneously stiff, a tick came to Gregory’s jaw. “Sir Statham, Baron Witte, and the Marquise of Glauster. Do those names sound familiar, my love?”
Her dead husband's cohorts. They were the names he had asked for that she had not given. “Add the Harrow bastard to the list.”
The way he could move with such grace was eerie, but Arabella refused to lose her defiance when he pulled her flush and growled. “Your new Baron Iliffe does dearly love the gaming tables. You would be amazed how much he has lost in so short a time. How much he has lost to me, in fact. When it’s late and he is deep in his cups do you know how often your name seeps into conversation? Stories still circulate about how tight you are and how prettily you scream for it.”
There was no helping how her lip shook or the tears running down her cheeks. Every part of her knew better than to ask, but that did not stop her tongue. “Why are you doing this? What have I done to make you hate me so greatly?”
Gregory's palm came to her jaw, Arabella jerking away until he gripped the base of her skull and held her still. With her head held steady, Gregory traced the softness of her lips with his thumb. “I know about the cellar room. I have seen it—your blood still crusts the stones. I know about the dark he kept you in and why you wake in terror at night. He told me everything as he lay dying.”
Her breath caught, wanting never to think of that place again. “I don't understand.”
“The Marquise of Glauster. I drowned him in the Thames.” Gregory stroked her cheek as if he could wipe away such pain. “Over several hours he confessed much, begged for your forgiveness, and cried like a child.”
“My God...” Arabella could not breathe, more tears welling hot in her eyes.
“So tell me.” Gregory held her closer, breathing his words upon her parted mouth. “Did I do that for you out of hate?”
Her lower lip still trembled even as he pressed the lightest of kisses against it.
“Tell me, Arabella,” Gregory whispered, looking at the sorrow, the fear, the gratitude, and the utter disbelief mingling and disconnecting her expression. “You will say it aloud.”
She shook her head as much as his grip on her nape would allow. “I never asked you to do such a thing.”
“You'd never need to ask.” He shook her just enough to make certain she heard every last word. “You never need to ask me to care for you.”
There was only so much she could bear, and he always knew just what pressure would assure she'd crack. Her sob was meant to be slander. “Why? Because you love me?”
A groan of pure, unadulterated delight came from the man. Pressing her back toward the bed, laying her down so he might crawl over her, Gregory agreed. “That must be why.”
Her legs tangled in the night gown, pinned by calloused hands seeking what was underneath, she sought to avoid the eyes of the man above her whose cooing purr made her shiver, and whose heat seemed to say everything was as it should be.
“I would never hurt you.” Through all his words, Gregory's nose ran like a feather over her face, neck, and chest. “There is no need to tremble so.”
“You are hurting me,” she whispered, eyes screwed shut at the threats, the lies... the murder.
“You were never to know of Lilly,” he sounded almost apologetic. “But do you not see that no one can be informed of my intentions until your enemies have been destroyed? Her part to play is necessary. And, yes, I am aware she believes we have an understanding.”
“It is evil to use her.”
“I never claimed to be good.” In a graceful sweep of motion he cupped her jaw, caught her wet eyes, and spoke with uncustomary warmth, “She may look the part of the angel but her heart is as rotted as mine. I prefer the woman who has the very guise of a succubus, and the foolish goodness of a saint. How could you think any differently?”
“With all you do to those around you, how could you ever imagine I might trust you?”
“It is
unfortunate, I will admit.” Higher her gown went, until the red curls above her sex were exposed, until Arabella's soft belly was available to a warm mouth already peppering it with ardent kisses. “But you will learn.”
Staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling, laying on a rich bed in a strange room, she tangled her hands in the dark waves of the man who spoke of love and murder in the same breath, a beast whose tongue licked a deep taste up the slit between her legs and growled savagely, like a wolf over his prey. Each lap of his tongue twisted her mind between comforting disillusion and abject lust. Choking back the noise of her pleasure, she found him reaching up to press his fingers between her lips, telling her to suck and not cry out at the flick of his tongue on that nub of flesh he sought to pull between his teeth.
And she did, tasting him as if he were a part of her, listening to the music of his noisy sucking and grunts of pleasure. When she began to buck, his hand moved over her mouth. One more breath and she screamed her overburdened release against his palm.
Climbing over her, watching the undone woman blink in stupefaction, he pressed kisses to her jaw and asked like a boy desirous of praise, “Are you still angry?”
Her mind was nowhere near the place to process anything beyond the tremors and heat. He took advantage of her distraction, Gregory's hands everywhere until her night rail was peeled away and soft flesh was his to feast on. Half-aware, she struggled to stop his movements, because she was still angry—and because she desired him and knew it was absolutely wrong.
Arching up in frustration only led the man to moan, twisting only to make him bite, and the longer she wriggled, the more determined he became, until he set his weight upon her and spread yielding thighs.
Gregory whispered in the dark of how beautiful she was, drawing out soft breaths and whimpers until Arabella began moving her hips, not to escape the brand that sought out her folds, but to writhe against it.
He was killing her—that was the only thought in her head when the head of his cock swirled so sweetly where she was so unbelievably wet.
Leaning down, his voice low and tempting, he breathed against her mouth, “Does this please you, dear wife?”