by Anna Gracie
"Has something been upsetting you?
Or someone? Tell me instantly and I will see to the matter. "
Tallie blinked and stared at him in disbelief.
"Tell me at once, Tallie. There is no point in hiding it." He
brandished her ragged nails in her face and ran his thumb over them.
"These are testament enough. If someone has been upsetting you I
intend to get the matter sorted out immediately. I do not like you to
be upset. Did you not speak to Freddie about it--surely he could have
sorted the matter out for you?"
Tallie tugged on her hand, feeling no small degree of irritation. Who
did the stupid man think had upset her--the cook or the butler? Did he
think he could just disappear from her life with a cold, horrid formal
note and not upset her? She wrenched her hand from his and stood up.
"It is time to get that boy into a proper bath and then to bed," she
said.
"Do not change the subject, wife," growled Magnus in a low voice.
"There is a time and place for everything," she retorted, 'and this is
neither. Now, Harris, could you arrange hot water for his lordship,
and also for young Master Ricardo's bath? "
Ricardo looked up, grinning, recognising nothing in the speech except
his name.
"Si, Ricardo." He gave Magnus a triumphant look.
"No Richard," he repeated, and allowed Tallie to take him by the hand
and lead him from the room.
"He is asleep." Magnus stood at the doorway of Tallie's bedchamber.
Tallie nodded.
"Good," she whispered. And you? she thought. Where are you going to
sleep?
"You were right; the puppy did the trick. They're both tucked up in
bed together."
Tallie nodded again.
"Good idea that." He stood in the doorway, staring at her, the burning
heat of his gaze at odds with the casual diffidence of his voice.
"Um ... I like what you've done to this room."
Tallie nodded again. There was a lump in her throat, making it
difficult to talk. Chit-chat, like one had with a guest or a stranger,
not a husband.
"Like a garden in the bottom of the sea," he said.
"Very light and airy, all that green... muslin, is it? Nice." He
gestured to the gauzy window drapes and then to the curtains
surrounding her bed. He strode across the room and caught a bunch of
the fine soft fabric in a fist.
He stood there, running it through his fingers for a moment, and then
said diffidently, "I thought to sleep in here with you tonight. Do you
mind?"
Tallie stared at her husband. Did she mind? Was the man totally blind
to her feelings for him? She supposed she had not been as blatant as
she'd thought. But how often did one need to tell a man you loved him
before he took notice?
"I mean--' he said awkwardly.
"Er ... I know we can't... You can't... Oh, Hell!" He dashed his hands
through his hair and said in a rush, "I know we cannot make love, but
if you do not mind, I want very much to.
hold you tonight. "
You do not mind? She couldn't answer, just shook her head dumbly and
held out her arms to him. He reached her in two strides and pulled her
into his arms. His mouth came down on hers. tenderness. leashed
hunger. possession.
After a while he lifted her onto the bed and sat down. He sat there
looking at her, devouring her with his eyes. He reached up to smooth
her tumbled curls away from her face, delicately, clumsily, his big
hands trembling slightly.
"There were times when I thought I would never do this again, never
see--' His voice cracked and he pulled her tight againlst his chest.
Me, too," she whispered, rubbing her face against his freshly shaven chin.
He pulled his head back and stared at her in surprise.
"You thought you'd never see me again? But you didn't know where I was."
"No, I didn't."
"Then how?" -He frowned.
"Why on earth would you think I wouldn't return? You weren't to know
I'd gone back to Italy, that I was behind enemy lines. I distinctly
told you I'd gone to London on business."
Tallie scanned his puzzled face in utter disbelief.
"I know what you told me," she said, unable to disguise the edge in her
voice. She knew his horrid letter off by heart.
"So then...?"
She stared at him. He seemed genuinely confused.
Magnus stared back at her.
"You sound upset."
"Of course I am upset!" she snapped.
"How did you expect me to feel when I got that letter?"
"I didn't want to worry you, so--' " Didn't want to worry me! Didn't
want to worry me! " Her voice rose in indignation.
"You great mutton-headed man! You dumped me here like an unwanted cat
and slipped away in the night like a criminal, leaving me a note that
said you had important business elsewhere and that I was to get on with
my life! How did you expect me to feel?"
Magnus's mouth gaped open. A frown furrowed his brow.
"But it wasn't like that at all," he said slowly.
"It was exactly like that!" Tears quivered on her eyelashes and she
groped for a handkerchief.
"Oh, drat it. This always happens," she mumbled, and reached for one
of the muslin bed curtains to dry her eyes.
He lifted her trembling hands from her face, holding them gently in
his, and gazed into her swimming eyes.
"You thought I had abandoned you?" he said slowly.
Tallie nodded.
"That I didn't care?"
She nodded again.
His grip shifted and he lifted her hands, the ragged nails showing
stark and ugly between his fingers.
"Then these..." he stroked them with his large tanned thumbs 'are all
my fault. "
Tallie said nothing. She bit on her lip.
"Oh, God," Magnus groaned.
"I never dreamed you would take it like that."
"What did you expect?" she whispered.
"I told you I loved you."
"But-' " But what?
"Women say that sort of thing all the time," Magnus said after a
moment.
"I was not sure you really meant it."
Tallie closed her eyes, unbearably hurt. After a time she managed to
say, "Well, I did. I'm sorry if you don't--' " Hush! " he murmured,
and drew her into his arms. A long silence passed with only the sound
of two heartbeats to fill it.
"I have heard more " I love you's than I care to remember. Starting
with my mother," he began in a low, roughened voice.
Tallie drew back a little, regarding him with heavy eyes.
"But I thought--' Magnus gave a hard little laugh.
"Only in company, of course. Then she pretended to dote on me. As for
the rest... She couldn't bear the sight of me."
"But why?"
"God knows. I started by ruining her figure; I remember that
accusation." He shrugged carelessly, but Tallie could sense the
ancient wounds in him. They had cut very deep. She stroked his
cheek.
"Oh, it's all water under the bridge now," he said, 'but I suppose it made me hesitate to. to trust a woman. I have known a
number of women," he co
ntinued.
"Birds of paradise, cyprians, that sort of thing. Each one told me they loved me." He shrugged.
"Always when they wanted something--a bauble of some sort, usually...
Although sometimes it was because they had betrayed me and were trying
to placate me with their lies.."
Tallie continued stroking his cheek, loving the faint rasp of whiskers
beneath her skin. He was telling her he could never love her. She
could deal with that, she thought sadly, as long as he continued to
hold her, as long as he let her love him.
"And then I married you," he said softly, and his voice changed.
"I hadn't planned to. I'd planned to ask one of Laetitia girls. "
"Why did you change your mind?" whispered Tallie, wondering if he'd
tell her the truth, as she'd overheard him tell Laetitia that night in
the library.
"I think it was the puppy."
Tallie pulled away to stare at him.
"The puppy! She felt vaguely offended.
He drew her back into his arms and tucked her head under his chin.
"I saw a small boy whose puppy had got them both into trouble. The puppy
was to be destroyed as a punishment for the child's disobedience. "
Tallie sighed, remembering.
"I knew exactly what it was like to be that little boy. My father
destroyed a number of my own pets for the same reason--in our family it
is called " making a man of the boy"," he added bitterly.
"I watched that boy, knowing grief was inevitable."
He hugged her tighter and rubbed his jaw against her hair.
"And then out from nowhere sprang a young lioness to defend the cub, a
lioness who risked her own insecure position in the household to save a
boy-cub who was not even her own." He planted a kiss on her ear.
"She even saved the puppy..."
Tallie lay against his chest, her eyes wet once again at the thought of
the boy Magnus and how little he had known of love and joy.
"I wanted that young lioness for my own children," he said at last.
"I knew it was too late for me, but my children would grow up knowing what
it was like to be. to be. " His voice shattered into dry splinters.
"To be loved, Magnus. Loved."
He nodded, overcome.
"And they will be, I promise you," Tallie whispered, placing both their
hands on her belly.
"This one already is." She cupped his face with her hands.
"And so are you, Magnus. It isn't too late for you at all. I love
you."
She gazed into his tormented eyes and said softly, "I love you so much,
you have no idea. You are everything I've ever dreamed of, you. know
She smoothed his hair and said again, " I love you, Magnus.
Even when I was so hurt when you left, and so angry with you, I still
loved you. I think I will always love you. It doesn't matter if you
don't love me back; I've enough love for both of us. "
"But--' " Hush, it doesn't matter," she said, and kissed him.
He kissed her back, ravenously, but after a mo menthe drew back with a
groan.
"But it does matter--' " No-' "Let me finish," he said, kissing her
again, a brief, hard kiss.
"I...
I never expected marriage to be like this. I thought. thought I could
just pick a suitable woman and continue my life, almost unchanged. It
was the children I was thinking of. "
"An heir." She nodded.
"No, not an heir. Children. If we only had one little girl, I would
be happy. If we had a string of little girls I would be just as
happy."
"Do ... do you not want a boy, then?" she asked worriedly.
"A boy would make me very happy, too," he assured her.
"A boy, not an heir. I want a child. The sex is immaterial."
She smiled, not entirely sure she understood, but reassured just the
same.
"My father had me thrashed every morning from the age of five," he said
bluntly.
"It was the time-honoured way to ensure the heirs of d'Arenville became
strong enough for the position. " But that is appalling," she
gasped.
"In that case I am glad you were sent away to school so young. Such a
thing is utterly barbarous."
He smiled, a smile of cold reminiscence that made Tallie shudder.
"Oh, he had me thrashed at school, too. Every morning at eight o'clock
sharp, except for Sundays. Until my eighteenth birthday."
"Oh, Magnus, that is..." Words failed her. She could only hug him
tight and press kisses on whatever part of him she could find.
"You understand now why I do not want a d'Arenville heir?"
Tallie hugged him tighter and kissed his ear.
"I love you, Magnus, I love you," was all she could think of to say.
He rolled her back on the bed and kissed her, covering her face, her
neck, her breast with his kisses. He cupped her breasts gently.
"They are bigger," he murmured, lavishing kisses on them. He ran a
hand down to caress her swollen belly.
"I want to see you--all of you."
Tallie blushed.
"But I look--' " You look beautiful, and I want to see you," he
repeated, and reached for the hem of her nightgown. Slowly he drew it
up, over the long slender legs, up to the thatch of tawny curls at
their junction and up over the smooth, tight mound of her belly. He
lifted it over the creamy swelling breasts and over the tumbled
honey-streaked curls. He tossed the gown to the foot of the bed and
knelt above her. And then he just stared, his eyes moving over her,
absorbing every change, every nuance of her body.
Tallie's embarrassment died away.
His storm-dark eyes caressed her, bathing her in a warm radiance. She
had never felt so beautiful in her life. Obscure little Tallie
Robinson, plain and ordinary, swollen and ungainly with pregnancy,
feeling so utterly beautiful when this man looked at her.
"I love you, Magnus," she said softly, reaching for him.
"I wish I had been here to see all these changes," he murmured,
stroking her body, learning it anew.
"Thank you for bringing me my brother." She arched against his hand
like a cat.
"I don't think I said it before. I don't understand why you wanted to,
but it has made me very happy."
His hand stilled.
"I had to." His voice was husky and deep.
"Had to? But why?" She reached up and began to undo his shirt.
"To... to show you."
"Show me what?" Her hands finally undid his shirt and she reached for
the buttons on his pantaloons. His hand stopped her.
"Don't you see?" He gripped her hands tightly.
"I couldn't say it--the words mean... meant nothing to me. I couldn't
say it, so I had to... to show you."
"Show me what?" she said softly.
"That I--' He stopped.
"Damn it, you know what I am trying to tell you."
She shook her head gently.
"No, Magnus, I don't know."
"That I... I... Oh, curse it, that I love you, of course!" he said
gruffly.
Tallie scrambled up on the bed and knelt facing him.
"Oh, Magnus! Oh, Magnus!" And she flung herself into his arms.
After some time he said, "I know we cannot make love at
this stage of
your confinement, but... do you think...? I want to touch you here."
His hand cupped the curly thatch at the base of her stomach.
Tallie blushed and shook her head happily.
"I'm sure it will be all right... if you want to."
His eyes darkened into the brooding sea-grey darkness she had never
thought to see again.
"I do want to." He lowered his head to the curls.
Tallie's jaw dropped.
"Magnus, what are you?" -She gasped. Then she gasped again. Then she