Married: The Virgin Widow

by Deborah Hale

  Laura frowned. “But you had no idea then what Cyrus had done. For all you knew, I was an experienced woman, eager to welcome your advances.”

  That was perfectly true. Though looking back, with the knowledge he now possessed, it did not soothe his guilt.

  She took both his hands in hers and tugged him toward the bed. “For my part, I had no idea the pleasure you meant to give me. If I had, things might have gone differently that night.”

  Ford tried to draw consolation from her words, but he recalled too clearly his predatory advance and his request for a kiss that must have sounded like a veiled demand. “I cannot tell you how often I’ve wished I could go back and change what happened that night.”

  “That is not possible.” Laura came to rest against the bedpost and pulled him toward her, trapping one of his legs between hers. “But perhaps we can do the next best thing. I have a confession to make.”

  That made Ford uneasy. Her previous revelations had all shaken his world.

  Pressing her warm, fragrant body against his, Laura stretched up to whisper in his ear. “When you came here that night, you were convinced I wanted you.”

  Ford nodded. It seemed a pitiful excuse now. The signs of her reluctance and fear had been so obvious to anyone not determined to ignore them for his own selfish reasons.

  “I did.” Her ragged whisper made him forget his shame. “Part of me at least. Wary and ignorant as I was of such things, I wanted you. Looking back, I wonder if I was more frightened by the intensity of my own desire than I was of you.”

  She grasped one of his hands to place over her sweetly rounded bottom and the other upon the tantalising swell of her breast.

  “Now I know exactly what I want.” She brushed her lips across his cheek, bringing them to rest against his.

  Ford’s self-control crumbled like a tower of cards. Seizing her in a lusty embrace, he proceeded to sate his hungry hands and mouth upon the rich sweets she offered. To his delight, she responded with equal fervour, rubbing her thighs against his and tugging up his shirt so her hands could range over his chest. She stoked the blaze of his lust until he felt in danger of bursting into flame.

  Ever since their honeymoon, Ford had been careful to keep his lovemaking restrained and gentle. After her mother’s death, he’d been even more solicitous. He had been rewarded with intense satisfaction from those encounters, but this fierce, urgent love play promised something more.

  As they exchanged fevered caresses, Laura began to turn as if performing a figure in some wildly sensuous dance. Ford was only too happy to let her lead. A moment later, he discovered her intent when she pushed him backward upon the bed, landing on top of him in a thrilling reversal to what happened on the night of that ball.

  Laura straddled him, her parted thighs poised above his loins. Her hands rested on his chest, restraining him even as they fondled. A cascade of tousled golden hair framed her flushed, eager face.

  “Tonight—” she leaned toward him and ran her tongue over his lips, pulling back with tormenting playfulness when he tried to kiss her “—I hope you will give me—” she pressed her parted thighs against his straining rod and he could feel her sultry heat clear through his buckskin breeches “—what I want!”

  Her thrilling demand sent a jolt of lust searing through him.

  Once again she taunted him with her mouth, daring him to ravish her…and risk being ravished in return. “Are you man enough for the challenge?”

  “I will show you what I am man enough for!” Ford spoke in a hoarse whisper as he strained to claim her lips. Thrusting his hands beneath the hiked-up hem of her nightgown, he fondled the firm, rounded lobes of her bottom.

  She wriggled on top of him with wanton abandon, returning the scorching heat of his kisses until neither of them could bear the urgency of their need. He tore off his upper clothes while she fumbled his breeches open and tugged them down.

  He tried to pull off her nightgown, but only succeeded in getting his head inside the billowing folds. There, the sight of her bare breasts proved too compelling a temptation for him to think of anything else. As he kissed and lapped and suckled with greedy gusto, Laura guided him inside her. At once they embarked on a glorious, wild ride that sent them bucking, writhing and crying out in a frenzy of savage delight.

  Spent and sated, they barely had the strength to crawl between the sheets.

  “Another like that—” Ford sighed as his whole body pulsed with waves of satisfaction “—and we are apt to set the bed on fire.”

  “Let us save that challenge for next winter.” Laura nestled against him, planting a kiss on his breastbone. “It would be a great help with the coal bill.”

  With a drowsy chuckle, Ford drifted toward the tropical shoals of sleep, thinking he could not possibly be happier. Then Laura showed him otherwise.

  “Speaking of winter and warmth,” she murmured, “I think it would keep us both much warmer this winter if we share a bedchamber.”

  For a moment, Ford was too overcome to speak. He knew what a difficult step it must be for her to forfeit a place of her own to which she could retreat. In its way, this was a deeper, more courageous commitment to their marriage than going through with the wedding ceremony.

  “A capital idea,” he replied at last in a husky whisper. Recalling a jest he’d made on their wedding night, he added, “For better for worse, for richer for poorer…for hotter for colder.”

  This time Laura laughed, a sound as warm and sweet as mulled cider on a frosty night. That laughter poured from her lips, straight into Ford’s heart, until it was so full, he wondered how it could keep beating.

  Laura froze on the threshold of her bedchamber. As she stared at her Bible in Ford’s hand, time seemed to stop and her heart along with it.

  She’d just returned from a visit to Lyndhurst, her spirits lighter than they had been in weeks because she had finally hit upon a solution to her dilemma. She would entrust the marriage certificate to a lawyer along with a letter of explanation and directions that it should only be made public after Ford’s death. It might not be the proper thing to do, legally or morally, any more than concealing the true manner of her father’s death had. But weighed against the personal cost to those she loved most, it was the best compromise she could live with.

  But a higher power appeared to disagree. Had this been some sort of test, which was now being taken out of her hands because she had failed?

  After a moment that seemed to stretch on and on, Laura forced herself to move and speak. “Ford, what are you doing here? What is going on?”

  Hard as she tried to keep her tone neutral, her words came out sharp and tight. She had not spoken to her husband like that since their honeymoon. Lately they had both gone out of their way not to provoke each other. Now her abrupt entrance and peremptory questions seemed to strike Ford the wrong way.

  “Is it not obvious?” He gestured toward the two housemaids who had been bustling about collecting Laura’s belongings. “I am having your things moved to our new quarters. I thought I would surprise you by getting all the work done while you were away. You are earlier than I expected.”

  Though she knew he’d meant it as a thoughtful gesture, an expression of his eagerness to be closer to her, Laura could not quell a flash of irritation. Once again, Ford was taking charge of her life, invading her privacy without let or hindrance. And he made it sound as if she was in the wrong for acting contrary to his expectations.

  “Belinda was indisposed so I did not stay long.” She reached to take the Bible from his hand. “I wish you had told me what you were planning. I would just as soon have done this myself.”

  She tried to pull the Bible away, but Ford refused to surrender it. “It would not be much of a surprise if I told you. I was only trying to save you a little work. I did not think you would take such exception to my offers.”

  Discretion warned Laura not to make such a fuss. It would only rouse Ford’s suspicion. But this secret had been preying
on her peace of mind, stalking her newborn happiness, threatening to destroy all her hopes. How could she remain calm while its exposure hung by a thread?

  Laura pulled harder on the Bible just as Ford suddenly let go. As she staggered backward, flailing to catch her balance, the Bible slipped from her hand and dropped to the floor. The folded paper fell out.

  With trembling hands, Laura seized it, then scooped up the Bible and thrust the paper back inside. As she rose from the floor, she glanced up Ford. The cold glint of suspicion in his gaze made her heart sink, even as it pounded a frantic beat in her breast.

  He turned to the housemaids who stood about awkwardly in the middle of their work. “That will be all, thank you.”

  The two girls fled as if the room had caught fire. Laura feared it soon might.

  Once the housemaids’ hurried footsteps had faded in the distance, Ford fixed Laura with a wary gaze and held out his hand. “What are you trying to hide from me now?”

  She could not let him see that paper, especially under such suspicious circumstances. He had hated her once when he thought she’d tried to steal his inheritance. How would he feel now, knowing she had cost him not only his lands and title, but his very name and his mother’s reputation? She had given seven years of her life to ransom this secret. She would not surrender it now without a fight!

  The last thing in the world he wanted was to think ill of Laura. For so long, the lurking serpent of suspicion had poisoned his feelings for her. Every one of those suspicions had proven false. he’d vowed never to let them threaten his and Laura’s happiness again. But as he gazed at the Bible in his wife’s hands, the corner of a paper protruded from its pages, mocking his trust.

  Trust cut both ways, he reminded himself. He’d assumed everything was open and understood between them now and Laura was keeping no more secrets. How could he ignore her blatant efforts to hide something from him? How could he ignore the memory of her threat to destroy him, which now echoed in his mind?

  “Hide from you?” cried Laura in a pitiful pretence of indignation. “Don’t be ridicu—”

  “Is this ridiculous?” Ignoring her squeak of protest, Ford strode toward her, wrenched the Bible from her hands and pulled out the scrap of paper pressed between its pages. “What are you so determined to prevent me from seeing?”

  When he tried to unfold the paper, Laura seized his wrists with surprising force, holding his hands apart. She gazed up at him with a pleading, panic-stricken countenance. “It is…a letter my mother left…for my eyes only. I will thank you to return it to me.”

  He wasn’t sure which enraged him more. That she would tell him so blatant a lie? Or that she thought him daft enough to believe it?

  “What kind of fool do you take me for?” He slipped into his old glacial severity like a familiar greatcoat he had put away for the summer, but now found himself urgently needing. “If this is from your mother, as you claim, you should have no objection to my unfolding it enough to view her signature. If it is hers, I will return it to you with my sincerest apologies.”

  Laura gripped his wrists even tighter. “Do you suppose any apology would be sufficient to excuse such an intrusion?”

  “I will take that as a refusal.” Ford’s lip curled. “Which surprises me. I should think you would be eager to prove your innocence.”

  “I resent having to prove anything to you! Especially after all we have been through. Very well, it is not a letter from my mother. It is something you are far better off not knowing. Now please, if you care about our happiness, give the thing to me so I can destroy it. Then we can put it out of our minds and—”

  “And what?” Ford demanded. “Go back to ignorant bliss? I fear that will not do for me. You talk about our happiness, but how am I to be happy with a secret like that between us?”

  With each word his voice grew harsher. His hands balled into fists, the right one still gripping the paper. He shook his arms, shaking Laura as she clung to them. “You might as well wish me pleasant dreams, then put a scorpion in my bed!”

  Sensing he was in danger of losing control altogether, Ford froze and dropped his voice to a murmur. “I thought we were done keeping secrets. They have caused nothing but trouble between us.”

  His sudden icy calm seemed to affect Laura more than his passionate outburst. “Any secrets I kept were to protect the people I love. That is what I am trying to do now. Do you think I should have told my mother the truth about how my father died or the way Cyrus mistreated me?”

  “I am not like your mother. I do not need to be shielded from the slightest unpleasantness. Tell me, is this the instrument of my ruin you threatened me with the night of the ball? Would you try to protect me by destroying it? Or do you plan to keep it as a weapon to use against me some day?”

  Laura recoiled from his charge. He thought she might crack, but she was made of sterner stuff. Disappointed and enraged as he was, Ford could not stifle a flicker of admiration for her spirit.

  “Go ahead then!” She threw her hands up, releasing his. “I can see you will not rest until you know, even if it means destroying everything we were beginning to build. I want you to know one thing first. I paid a high price to protect this secret even when I believed you had forsaken me. If you cannot believe that, you can never trust me. And if you cannot trust me, you cannot love me as—” her voice broke “—as I deserve to be loved.”

  Ford ached to rip the paper to shreds as he might throttle a venomous snake that menaced Laura. He pictured her tearful smile and her arms held open to forgive him the doubts he had fought and conquered for her sake.

  But the paper seemed to burn his fingertips, mocking him with its vile mystery. How could he protect himself against a phantom peril? If life had taught him one harsh lesson, it was that what he did not know could harm him most.

  “Forgive me.” He unfolded the paper and stared at its contents, surprised to discover it was not a letter, as he’d supposed, but some kind of document. “I have to know.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ford peered at the words, struggling to make sense of them. “What in blazes is this?” he muttered. “It looks like—”

  “A marriage certificate.” Laura finished his sentence in a flat, dead tone. Even if Ford could forgive her for destroying his life, she was not certain a marriage so blighted by suspicion and past hurts was worth saving. “Don’t you recognise any of the names?”

  “My mother’s—her real name. Her family didn’t approve of her becoming a paid entertainer and since Italian sopranos were all the fashion, she took the stage name Alicia Forelli.”

  Why did Ford bother to explain all that? Laura wondered. Was he desperate to postpone the moment he must acknowledge the shattering truth? “I know. Cyrus told me. He said your father’s family was not happy about the marriage. Cyrus decided to investigate your mother’s background. He found…that.”

  Ford read the words over and over, as if trying to devise some meaning he could bear to believe. “It says she was married on the third of November, seventeen hundred and eighty-five, to a Daniel Witheridge, hostler of Dartmoor parish. That’s four years before I was born. I never knew my mother was a widow.”

  “For God’s sake!” cried Laura, “Do you suppose I would have tried so hard to keep this from you if she’d been a widow? Cyrus got this certificate from Daniel Witheridge himself, six months after your parents were married! He meant to show it to your father, but when he returned to Hawkesbourne he learned your mother was expecting a child.”

  A child whose parents were never legally wed because his mother had a previous husband still living. A child whose birth was therefore illegitimate, barring him from holding the family title and estates.

  “Why have I never heard a whisper of all this in thirty years?” The significance of what it meant seemed to be dawning on Ford at last.

  “Your grandfather dreaded the scandal it would make. He forbade Cyrus to reveal it. By the time Cyrus inherited the title, your mot
her and father were both dead, as was Mr Witheridge. I suppose he felt there was nothing to gain by dredging up the past and humiliating you unless…”

  “Unless what?” Ford shook the marriage certificate at her. “And how do you come to have this in your possession?”

  “You might call it a wedding present,” said Laura. “Along with the money to pay off my father’s debts. I know you despised me for putting your inheritance in jeopardy by marrying your cousin, but I never wanted to do that. When Cyrus first offered to give my family a home and pay my father’s debts in exchange for marrying him, I refused. It would have been as bad as stealing money from you to provide for my family.” Her voice trailed off.

  Ford continued to stare at the paper in his hands. Was he gazing into the abyss of ruin that had suddenly opened before him? Or could he not bear to look at the agent of his destruction?

  Though Laura doubted he would believe a word she said, she still felt compelled to explain. “When I told Cyrus why I could not marry him, he said it did not matter because you would never inherit Hawkesbourne. He said if I bore him a son, there would be no need for anyone to know your mother’s secret—least of all you. If I refused to marry him, he threatened to make the scandal public. As proof, he gave me the marriage certificate.”

  Ford said nothing. He did not have to. Desolation was written on his face in deep, cruel strokes. Part of Laura yearned to comfort him, though she feared he would never accept. Another part still burned with anger that he had brought this upon himself and her with his insidious mistrust. Again and again she’d proven his worst suspicions about her false—that she was a fortune hunter, that she had betrayed him, that she had schemed to jilt him for Sidney Crawford. Yet when she had given him an opportunity to trust her at last, he had tossed it aside with scorn.

  “I suppose you wonder why I kept the marriage certificate all these years. While Cyrus was alive, I almost forgot I had it. But when you returned from abroad and proposed, I thought I might need it as security, something I could use against you if you ever tried to hurt me as Cyrus had. The night of the ball, I thought that was what you were trying to do. But when you swore you would not force me and when I realised how much my past actions had hurt you, I could not go through with it.”