When she rose to meet him, he increased the tempo of plunge and drag, submerging his senses in the sultry sensations, in blissful wet friction. His release coiled hot and tightened his ballocks. His pulse thundered in his ears, but failed to deafen Mary’s cry as another orgasm broke over her. The convulsive spasms of her inner muscles milked his cock and brought on a climax of volcanic force. He cried out in ragged gasps as he exploded, pumping scalding streams of his seed into her.
Hadley collapsed beside her spent and strangely at peace, only to find her staring back at him. Her gold-flecked eyes were soft with wonderment, trust—and another emotion that made his chest constrict until he thought his heart would burst—love.
Chapter Eighteen
Overcome with contentment for the first time in distant memory, coupled with the peaceful languor of sexual repletion, Hadley closed his heavy lids to drift placidly into the welcoming arms of Morpheus.
“Hadley, is it always like this?”
He willed his breathing to remain deep and slow and his eyes closed, desiring nothing more than to remain in his blessed sex-sated stupor. “No, my pet.” He nuzzled her hair and pulled her snugly against him.
“Hadley, have you…have you been with so very many women?”
He groaned a muffled oath and his eyes jerked open. Determined to nip a pointless interrogation in the bud, he took her firmly by the chin. “Let it rest, Mary. The past is inconsequential. To dwell on it only brings destruction. But know from this moment on, there is only you. You are the one I have wed, the only one who occupies my bed and in at least this aspect of our union, I have promised you no regrets.”
“I believe you.” She smiled dreamily.
“Good then,” he kissed the corner of her mouth, rolled onto his back, and closed his eyes. He had nearly drifted off again when another question jarred into his consciousness.
“What happens now?” she asked.
He made an exasperated sound. “My dear Mary, you must learn to give a man sufficient time to recover his wits after extensive love-making. It is a prodigiously draining experience.”
“Oh,” she replied.
He cracked his lids again and found her plucking at the counterpane.
“What is it now?” he fought to keep the growl out of his voice.
“It is done, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It is done. Irrevocably.” His eyes narrowed. “You are suffering remorse?”
“No…yes,” she sighed.
“Which is it, Mary?” he demanded.
“It’s just that I’m frightened, you see. I have lived the most peaceful and predictable life until these past months and I was content with that. It suits me, Hadley. How are we ever to make this work between us?”
“You worry too much. I asked you to trust me.” His conscience prodded him again for he was a bastard to demand something he would never give to another—blind faith. Moreover, he’d done absolutely nothing to deserve it.
“I cannot give my trust like some blank check. You must tell me more, Hadley. You said we must go away. How? When? And for how long? You have told me nothing and I don’t like being in the dark.”
Realizing the futility of slumber, he pulled her close and pillowed her head on his shoulder. “Then, my dearest, I shall try to illuminate the darkness. Yes, we must go abroad. I am in the process of making such arrangements. It must also be soon as Sir Richard has plans for you that certainly do not include me. You understand that there lies no small amount of antipathy between us?”
“Yes, I do, now that you’ve shared some of your history.”
“Your guardian is an exceedingly wily and treacherous man,” Hadley said. “He is also powerfully connected, and should he get wind of what we have done, it will not bode well for me.”
“But no one knows about us…except…” Her voice dropped off. “You said when you entered my room that the countess had sent you to me. It was she who gave you the key?”
“Yes, but Barbara has no loyalty to Sir Richard for she had designs on your money from the start. That is why she called me from Rome, in hope that I would woo you for my wife. She will not stand in our way as long as she believes she has something to gain.” He wondered how a man of his vast experience of the dark side of human nature could have been so oblivious to Barbara’s full intentions.
“By your re-claiming your estate and good name?” she asked.
“Something like that,” Hadley answered, purposefully vague.
“Hadley, you truly didn’t know who I was that first day in the music room? When you tried to teach me to dance?”
“I more than tried, you were actually doing quite well before you ran away from me. But to answer your question, I did not yet know you were Sir Richard’s ward. I was only just arrived from Italy and had not yet seen Barbara, nor had she revealed any details of you in her letters to me.”
“But once you knew, you set out to seduce me for my money?”
“I had designs on your fortune as a means of revenge,” he replied with brutal honesty.
Mary winced, yet she continued to press him. “If that is true, why didn’t you…when we were at Bushy Park, I was certain that you would…” Her brows drew together. “What stopped you, Hadley?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “It was not my overdeveloped scruples, I assure you.”
“I can’t believe you are as black as you would paint yourself,” she replied.
“I am very black indeed.” He gave her a dark look. “But perhaps that awareness is what stopped me.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“You, my dear Mary, are the only thing in my life that is untainted. I think I could not bear to be the one to defile you.”
“Untainted?” she laughed. “You are quite mistaken in me, I assure you.”
There was no humor in his smile. “Compared to the company I have kept these past seven years, you are a veritable angel come to earth.” His tone softened. “And now I wonder if you came just to save me.”
Their eyes met for another long searching moment.
“Why do you need to be saved?” she asked.
“Because I have done some unspeakable things.” An understatement indeed.
Following his father’s death, Hadley had sunk to depths of depravity that had nearly killed him. Gaming to his ruin, nightly drunken orgies with countless faceless lovers, he’d exercised neither moderation nor discrimination in his relentless need to fill the bottomless, black void. He’d reached rock bottom when Barbara had come to him with Sir Richard’s proposition.
Seeing her again had been akin to looking into a mirror, and he’d found it appalling in the extreme. It was then the epiphany had come upon him—his hunger could never be sated, the void never filled, because his soul was corrupt. The simple acceptance of this fact had allowed him to master his most destructive urges, and regain some control of his life. Yet he knew he lacked the strength of character to redeem himself.
Hadley pulled her back into his embrace, murmuring softly against her hair, “My dearest Mary, I once thought myself damned, but now we are as one—you will be my salvation.”
They made love once more, slowly, tenderly, after which a tranquility of spirit settled over him like a warm blanket. For the first time in a decade, Hadley began to believe contentment might be within reach. It was Mary alone who had begun to shake his cynicism, to restore his faith in the existence of good amidst the moral corruption that he had come to accept as the norm. Just being with her evoked a peace that he hadn’t known since his boyhood—a peace he had every intention of holding, of protecting.
As soon as Mary slept, Hadley left her bed. He crept to his chambers and left some brief instructions for his valet and then rode out of London by first light. It was thirty miles each way to Gravesend but he had no choice but to go himself, for there was no one he trusted implicitly, and arranging secret passage to France was now his most urgent priority.
…
Mary a
woke hours later with an ineffable feeling of well-being. She had given herself body, heart, and soul, and found it wondrous. She had not wanted to love Hadley. She had fought it from the start. Like the unwanted primroses at Blanchard House, the seeds of it had implanted in her heart from the first meeting, refusing to be eradicated by force of will, or to wither from neglect. Contrary to circumstances or even reason, it had bloomed and grown roots that now bound her heart.
They had wed and had now shared a bed, and although Hadley had not told her that he loved her, he had betrayed himself with the tenderness of their lovemaking, with his gentle and reassuring caresses. He hadn’t rushed her, but had attended to her comfort, ensured her pleasure. With infinite patience, he had worshipped her body, and had taught her to adore his.
She realized how wrong she had been about coition being the ultimate demonstration of love between a man and a woman, for without speaking the words, Hadley had shown his love with his body. Mary knew she was more to him than he was yet prepared to confess, knowledge that made her feel like an overflowing fountain of bliss.
But now she was alone, the indentation of his head on the pillow and the stains and musky scent upon her sheets, the only evidence that it was not all just an erotic dream. He’d left without further explanation, even after she’d cajoled him in his moment of languor after lovemaking. She only knew he would return as promised and take her to France.
Mary rose from her bed at the sound of a key turning the tumblers, praying it was Hadley. She scrambled for her dressing gown, surprised by the tenderness between her thighs, a vivid reminder of last night. Her hopes crumpled when the door opened to Jenny carrying a breakfast tray.
“Oh, Miss! How happy I am that you be safely returned.” Jenny clapped a hand to her mouth with a look of utter dismay, and almost dropped her tray. “All your lovely hair!”
“It will grow back soon enough,” Mary insisted, even as she fought the burning behind her eyes.
Jenny set down the silver tray and then cocked her head to one side. “Mayhap ‘tis not so very bad. It does set off yer lovely eyes. A bit of ribbon and a comely lace cap could make all the difference. That woman is plain evil. ‘Tis no surprise ye run off after all they done! And now she has imprisoned ye, just like I said!”
“No doubt she and Sir Richard fear I will run off again,” Mary said.
“’Tis more than that. A jealous she-devil! That’s what she is!”
“Jealous? But why would you think that?” Mary asked. “What reason would Lady Blanchard ever have to be jealous of me?”
Jenny’s gaze narrowed. “It’s Lord Hadley. That’s what.”
“Jenny, you make no sense. You seem to forget that Lord Hadley is her stepson. If anything, she seems to have encouraged his attentions to me.”
“Aye, and there be sommat ye don’t know, miss. Sommat so very wicked that I almost durst not speak of it but I’m afeared for ye if I don’t.”
“What Jenny? What is so terribly wicked?”
“It’s sommat I heard last night about her ladyship and Lord Hadley.”
Mary’s gaze narrowed. “I thought you were above idle servant’s gossip, Jenny.”
“But miss, what I heard was no idle gossip. It came from a most trustworthy source.”
“Aye, and who might that be?” Mary made no effort to hide her skepticism.
Jenny looked away. “’Twas from his lordship’s man, James.”
“James?” Mary gave her another condemning look. “James was gossiping about Lord Hadley?”
“’Twas my concern over you what caused it to come out. When you ran off, James went wi’ his lordship to search for ye, but when he came back hours later wi’ no word I nigh fell to pieces. That was when he told me about her ladyship’s evildoing. He heard her talking to Lord Hadley in his chambers. She’s a bad one, the countess! A black-hearted bi—”
“Jenny!”
“It’s true miss! Don’t make no mistake about that!”
“Well, what is this heinous iniquity that you are so eager, yet so reticent, to share?”
“’Tis about the earl’s death.”
“You speak of the Earl of Blanchard? Lord Hadley’s father?”
“Aye, miss. One and the same.”
“What of the earl? Tell me Jenny,” Mary demanded.
Jenny bit her lip and crossed herself. “Do you know he committed self-murder?”
“Yes,” Mary replied. “I am aware of the circumstances surrounding his demise.”
“But are you really, miss? His lordship’s death wasn’t quite the way it was put about. Aye, he was ruined sure enough, but ‘twas his wife’s betrayal what really done him in. And word is that she had planned to do off wi’ the earl for his money even before he took his own life.”
“Jenny! You must not believe everything you hear!”
“But there’s much more than that, miss! She’s a Jezebel! She took lovers under his lordship’s very nose. The night that he died, they say he went to her ladyship’s rooms with a pistol in his hand. But when he saw who it was in her ladyship’s bed he turned the pistol on hisself.”
“What has this to do with me, Jenny?”
The maid downcast her eyes and wrung her apron.
“Jenny?” Mary prompted in a hoarse whisper even as a sickening churning commenced in her stomach. “Wh-who, Jenny? Who was it in the countess’ bed?”
Jenny took a great breath and blurted, “’Twas the earl’s own son! ‘Twas Lord Hadley in his stepmother’s bed! And I fear they plot sommat, miss!” Jenny shook her head and then turned to make the bed. “I’m sorry to have encouraged ye in that direction. A bad lot they both be! But who but the good Lord can know what lies inside?”
Mary clutched at a chair as a kaleidoscope of images careened in her head—the knowing looks exchanged between Barbara and Hadley when he first arrived, Barbara’s constant criticism of her every action, initially well-concealed but lately revealed with sickly venom, Hadley’s evasiveness about his past. You are the only thing in my life that is untainted…I have done some unspeakable things…I wonder if you came just to save me…
Jenny shook out the bed sheet and paused. She glanced at Mary and then again at the bloodstained linen with a furrowed brow. “Are ye alright Miss? Have ye begun your flux?”
“No, Jenny,” Mary croaked. “I am neither alright, nor have I begun my flux. What you see is proof that the same lying, scheming, deceitful scoundrel you speak of is now my lawful husband.”
Jenny’s eyes grew round and her visage paled. “But how can that be, miss?”
“He found me, Jenny, and persuaded me to marry him. We went to one of those chapels and said our vows…” Mary looked away, her voice dropping to a whisper, “And then last night he came to me…W-we consummated the union. We were supposed to leave together very soon and go abroad.”
The weight of her error was just too much to bear. Mary slumped under her load and collapsed into faithful Jenny’s arms with a sob. “I know almost nothing of him, Jenny! And now I have pledged my life to him! I was such a besotted fool, bewitched by his charm, manners, and his handsome face. And then when he kissed me…when he touched me…”
“Oh, miss! My heart breaks for ye! Truly it does.” Jenny stroked Mary’s cropped curls. “Lord knows some men have such a magic touch and ye not be the first woman, nor the last to be bamboozled. But what now, miss? What can ye do?”
“I don’t know, Jenny! What is done cannot be undone!” Mary sobbed anew. What a dupe she had been for trusting, for believing that he cared. She had briefly held to the divine delusion that he loved her, but now reality reared its beastly head.
Jenny waited for the torrent to pass and then offered her mistress a handkerchief. Mary dried her streaming eyes and blew her nose hard.
“So ye have defied Sir Richard and wed Lord Hadley.”
“Yes Jenny,” she sniffed. “I have defied him and once he finds out, I will have no money. Without a doubt, he will cut me off. Ha
dley told me that once consummated, our marriage would stand in a court of law, but surely, Sir Richard will try to contest it to tie up my inheritance.”
“Can ye keep the marriage a secret from yer guardian?”
“How? He even now negotiates another union. I might be able to delay but what good would that do? Eventually the truth must come out.”
“Then we must get ye out of this house and away from them all,” Jenny said. “For none of them are up to any good.” The maid chewed her thumbnail. “If ye say the marriage will stand, why not just go home to Leicestershire as a married woman? There are many who live on their own with husbands at sea and the like.”
“Jenny! I never would have thought of that.” Mary brightened, but only for a moment. “But how can I escape this place when they have me under lock and key?”
Jenny gave her a thoughtful frown. “Ye say Lord Hadley was to take you away?”
“Yes. He said he would return for me very soon.”
“Then I say ye go with him, at least to escape from this house.”
“But I can’t Jenny! I can’t even bear to look upon him after this. I never want to see his loathsome face again!”
“But miss, I don’t see another way. If he plans to take ye abroad, ye’ll be going to the coast. Just go along until you can get away from him altogether. We’ll contrive a way to slip off before the ship sails.”
“But even if I could manage to get away, I would still need money to hire a coach to get home.”
“Have ye any jewels?”
“Lady Blanchard has everything locked away except…” Mary rose and retrieved a small box from her dressing table. “Here’s the strand of pearls I wore to the opera.” She handed them to Jenny. “I daresay they’ll bring enough to get us home.”
“Would you like me to have James take them to the pawn for ye?”
“Are you sure you trust him?”
“Aye,” Jenny grinned, “But I still won’t say more than I must. Don’t fret miss; we’ll see you through this.”
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