Twice a Rake

by Catherine Gayle

  Love. Who was he to speak to her of love within a marriage? She did her best to keep the admonishment from her tone, for that just would not do when speaking to her father. “I shall endeavor to not argue with my husband any more than is absolutely necessary, but I can make no promises about love.” Particularly not since she had learned at least some small part of his reasons for marrying her. Love had never been in the equation, and she’d be damned if she tried to change that.

  “You must try to love him. If you don’t, you’re dooming yourself to a miserable marriage. A bleak life.” Father raked a hand through his thinning hair on a sigh.

  “I hardly think I’m the one dooming myself to anything.” Never mind her lost (and subsequently found) journal and its role in the debacle. “Or have you forgotten who kissed whom on that ballroom floor?”

  “That is hardly the point, Aurora, and you know it.”

  “Oh, so the point should be that I should have a marriage as euphoric as yours was with Mother? Such a delightful thought, spending the remainder of my days in an entirely separate wing of our estate, seeing each other only at meal times—and at those times he sees fit to attempt to impregnate me. Delightful prospect, that.”

  Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, Aurora wished she could shovel them back in and swallow them, never to be uttered. The pain in Father’s eyes was too palpable, too intense.

  “Is that what you’ve thought all this time? That we didn’t love each other?” His voice cracked over the words.

  She shrugged sheepishly. “How was I to think anything else? You were always so absent, so despondent. Mother was listless at her best moments—but more often she cried all the time. I remember her tears more than anything.” Mother’s tears and her own. But never Father’s. He hadn’t cried, not even when Mother had died.

  “Yes, your mother cried often. Far more often than you knew,” Father said. A single tear formed in his eye and fell down his cheek. Aurora reached up to wipe it, but he brushed her hand away. “Her father had always emphasized the importance of providing a male child, providing a son, and it was all she could think of. I told her time and again that it didn’t matter to me. We didn’t have to have any children at all, as long as we had each other. After all, it wouldn’t matter to me if the title passed to your Uncle George. He’s as deserving as anyone.”

  Father walked to the great picture window and stared out. The silence hung heavy in the room between them. “But she insisted we had to keep trying. It was four years of trying before you were born. Four years of failures—more miscarriages than I could count, and a babe born dead. A boy. So when you came along, I was delighted. I thought, perhaps, your mother would be as delighted as I. That she could be satisfied with a daughter and stop putting herself through that torture. For a while, she was. You were our sunshine—like the dawn breaking over the horizon after a long, dark night. Aurora. Goddess of the morning. For the first time, I thought she might manage to be happy. To stay happy.”

  He struck the wall beside him and Aurora jumped. Only then did she realize she’d been crying—when a tear fell to her lap from the force of her surprise.

  “But she couldn’t keep that up. You weren’t a son.”

  “Surely you told her the title could pass to me. Surely she knew she needn’t produce a male heir.”

  “Of course I did. But her father had it so ingrained in her mind, that what I wanted and what I told her no longer mattered. So we kept trying, and always with the same result. I became so frustrated with her, for putting herself through that sort of torture—the loss, the grief—that I couldn’t stand to see her any more. She cried all the time. You remember that part. She was so ashamed of herself for being unable to do what she thought was expected of her that she couldn’t face anyone. Only her lady’s maid was allowed to enter her room most days. When she sent for me, I would go. I still loved her. I would have done anything for her if I thought it would make her happy.”

  It was almost too much for Aurora to take in. Everything she believed, everything she thought she knew about her parents had been completely, utterly wrong. And if that was wrong, then everything she had spent her entire life doing in order to avoid the same fate…“You really loved Mother? You weren’t desolate because you’d married the wrong woman and could never love her?”

  Father sat in an armchair and faced her, his eyes unflagging in their sincerity. “I loved her more than breath. I wish I could go back and find a way to convince her that love was enough. That you were enough. But I can’t. All I can do is convince you to make the best of the lot you’ve been given. Promise me, please, that you’ll try to love him. Promise me you’ll do your best to be happy with him. I can’t live with myself if you don’t at least try.”

  Aurora didn’t know if she could live with herself, either. Loving Quin was not the reason, however. Honestly, with the way he’d made her feel last night, she didn’t think loving him would be very difficult at all.

  The problem now was something else entirely.

  It had better be obvious that your wife is breeding before the year is out.

  What if she had the same problems with childbearing as her mother?

  ~ * ~

  Quin paced in his library. Back and forth, back and forth, so many times he was sure he’d worn a path in the parquet flooring.

  Why the devil had he allowed his temper to get the best of him? Simply telling himself that was how he’d always been wasn’t good enough. He was a married man now. He needed to behave with a hint more decorum around his wife, and even more so around her father.

  He refused to become any more like his own father than he already was. Quin would be damned before he’d become a belligerent, bellicose husband, irrespective of his intentions (or lack thereof) for becoming a husband in the first place.

  Learning to tide his anger was his new priority. He placed it right up alongside impregnating his wife. The latter of which held far more to entice him than the former.

  Quin glanced at the clock. Over an hour. Aurora had been sitting and talking with her father for well over an hour, and all he’d done the entire time was pace. And fume. And slowly, meticulously disrobe himself. Not entirely, of course—but his greatcoat had been stifling him and his stupid neck cloth was strangling him, and no one could bloody well tell him what he should or should not wear in his own damned home.

  However, none of those things were quite what he’d consider a grand endeavor of productivity in terms of accomplishing either of his newfound priorities.

  The entire day had felt like an effort in futility. One visit followed by another. And another, and another. The entire time, all he’d been able to think about was tossing Aurora over his shoulder (which was still sore from breaking down the door yesterday, but that hardly signified with what he intended to do) to carry her back to his chamber where he could continue where they’d left off early that morning.

  And not, mind you, solely because of Rotheby’s edict. Blast the old goat for his inane requirements and interference.

  By the time he reached the brink of madness from waiting, a soft knock sounded at the door. It was so quiet, at first he thought it merely a figment of his imagination. Still, he called out, “Come,” as a precaution.

  She came through the doors looking as dour as a funeral march, despite the jaunty appearance of her gown. “We need to talk, my lord.”

  My lord? Hadn’t they already handled that nonsense? She must have reacted to his argument with her father more strongly than he’d anticipated.

  Quin nodded and motioned for her to sit. Time to bloody well make nice. Wives were a damned nuisance, with all their emotional reactions and needing to talk. He’d have to inform Jonas of that fact. No reason for them both to end up leg-shackled if it could be avoided.

  He took a breath and prepared to launch into an apology, only to have his sweet, little wife cut him off.

  “Why did you marry me?” she demanded. “I want the real reason.”
/>
  Oh. Well, this was not quite the discussion he had expected. “You already know that, Aurora.” At least as much as he wanted her to know.

  “On the contrary,” she replied, almost before he had gotten the words out, “I know very little of your motives in this matter. We both know why I agreed to the match. A touch of blackmail took care of that matter rather famously.”

  She spoke the truth, but the sound of it coming from her lips made the act seem all the worse. Quin felt as low as the soles of his Hessians. “I married you because I ruined you. I was honor bound to”

  “Save the ‘honor bound’ part for someone who might care to hear it,” Aurora interrupted. “We both know you have no more honor than a highwayman.”

  For such venomous words, her face held none of the anger. Her eyes, usually so diaphanous, now were clouded in despondency.

  Much as he felt after her rebuke. How could he argue against the truth?

  “Will you not answer me, then? You will not tell me the real reason you needed to marry me?”

  How could he? If he’d been upfront about it, instead of trapping her into this marriage, forcing her hand, things might be different. But as it stood, she’d likely run off to her father if she learned why he had targeted her for marriage. After all, he had treated her so poorly in the bargain, why on earth would she want to cooperate with him?

  And he damned well needed her cooperation, at least until he knew for certain she was pregnant.

  “I married you because of your journal,” he said. “Because as soon as I saw it and its contents, I knew without a doubt you needed someone to bring you to heel. Clearly your father wasn’t handling that job very well.”

  Quin should have stopped before that last part. Damnation.

  Her eyes welled with tears. He hated tears. They always left him feeling so bloody useless, so incompetent. It was usually easier just to avoid them. That wasn’t an option at the moment.

  “You’re still lying to me,” she said, her voice so soft he had to lean toward her to make the words out. “I heard Lord Rotheby. I heard what he said about being sure I’m breeding before the end of a year.”

  Devil take it. He thought he’d closed the door so she couldn’t hear.

  “What will happen if I’m not?” Aurora asked, her eyes boring straight through him. Her lower lip trembled and it took every last bit of effort he could muster not to end the conversation then and there by kissing her on that lovely lip and letting things lead where they may. That would be so much easier.

  He couldn’t tell her. If he told her the truth, she’d leave him just to spite him. She’d go back to her father. Even though Quin had the right to drag her back to his side as her husband, how could he when he knew what a loathsome despot he was?

  He wouldn’t tell her.

  “Rotheby just wants me to produce an heir. Nothing else.”

  The lie rang hollow between them.

  She stared at him, through him, as though she were trying to see into his very soul. Then the tears that had been welling in her eyes finally spilled over, crashing down onto the bodice of her gown and darkening the fabric where they landed.

  She didn’t believe his lie any more than he did.

  ~ * ~

  Why couldn’t he tell her the blasted truth? No matter how many times Quin told her that Lord Rotheby meant nothing by that statement, that the earl merely wanted them to produce an heir before he died, Aurora knew there was something more.

  And that something more could prove to be of dire import, now that she knew just how difficult it had been for her mother to produce any child at all, let alone a male heir.

  What if she couldn’t have a child? What if she was barren? Could he divorce her for such a thing, or be granted an annulment? Aurora really ought to have paid more attention when her governess tried to explain these sorts of things to her. She’d always been too busy thinking about her next story to pay attention.

  She needed to talk to Rebecca—alone, without her husband sitting by and listening in, and without the boring Lord Norcutt (whom she’d promised to stop being so harsh to) offering his advice where it hadn’t been asked for.

  All of that, however, would have to wait. She and Quin had finished their supper—a quiet affair, with neither in any hurry to speak to the other—and she’d bathed and dressed for bed. She fully intended to go to bed alone. In her own chamber. Far, far away from her deceitful husband.

  Well, at least as far away from him as she could manage, with only the sitting room separating their chambers.

  There was that niggling voice in the back of her mind, telling her that sleeping in her own bed would hardly work out, since she’d be awake the entire night thinking of all the delightful and sinful things she could be doing with her husband.

  However, that voice was not speaking loud enough to be heard over the yelling at the forefront of her mind, reminding her of what a lying, manipulative nodcock he was, utterly devoid of any sort of morality or principles.

  Her lady’s maid stood at the bed, turning down the counterpane and situating the pillows.

  “I can manage from here, Rose. That will do.”

  Rose bobbed a curtsy, before turning on her way.

  Setting her candlestick aside, Aurora climbed into the bed and pulled the bedclothes over herself. She blew, extinguishing the flame.

  The door between her chamber and the sitting room fairly blew off its hinges. “Just what in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” her husband asked in a far too menacing tone. He brandished his own candlestick about, waving it in the darkness.

  “I’m going to bed. What are you doing?” The man had better learn that she only had so much patience, and all of it she’d set aside for the day had already been spent on their seemingly never-ending parade of guests and well wishers. There was simply none left to spare for him without a full night’s sleep.

  Quin marched over to stand looming above her. “Since when do you think you sleep in here?”

  “Oh, perhaps since the first time I slept in this house,” she replied, her tone filled with vitriol. “And if you’ll notice, I am polite enough to answer your questions before asking more of my own—a practice you might wish to consider adopting in future, my lord. It is, after all, only polite. Unlike barging into bedchambers without so much as a knock of warning, let alone a by-your-leave.”

  His eyes, almost solid black in the dim light of a single candle, bore down on her like a hound chasing a fox. “My lord, is it? Well, my lady, you need not address me with any level of informality. You may do as you please in your own chamber during the day. But at night, you will see fit to join me in our chamber.”

  What nerve! “I’ll not.” Aurora rolled away to give him her back.

  “You will,” Quin responded.

  She huffed—she actually huffed—something she never imagined she would do. Certainly not in response to her husband ordering her to do something that was so delightful she ought to want to do it, anyway. Perhaps she could work his insistence on her cooperation in her favor, though. “I want my journal back.”

  “Fine,” Quin all but growled. He pulled the counterpane from her and took hold of her wrist, dragging her behind him.

  Of all the dastardly, high-handed things he could have done, that took the prize. He wasn’t hurting her—far from it. But try as she might, Aurora could not pry herself free from his grasp. “Unhand me,” she demanded.

  Instead of complying with her command, however, he spun on his heel to face her so fast she nearly crashed headlong into his chest. “I have no intention of unhanding you.”

  His gaze had gone from murderous to ravenous in the minuscule span of seconds. If she didn’t look away soon from the intensity held there, she might just forget all about how upset she was with Quin for lying to her.

  Oh, dear good Lord. She couldn’t look away. Now the heat between them was entirely too much to bear and she felt that liquid pull in her core drawing her ever closer t
o him.

  “In fact,” he continued, “I intend to have my hands all over you in a few moments. More than just my hands.”

  “So this is how you plan to do what your grandfather requires? By force?”

  He winced and anger flashed in his eyes again. Or she thought it did. The frisson of emotion was gone as soon as it came. “I will never force you to do anything. But I do require you to perform your wifely duties. Which, might I remind you, only moments ago you agreed to with a compromise. Your journal.”

  “I agreed to sleep in your bed, not to be dragged there by force.” Odious man. “And I want my journal now. Please.” She held one hand out with the other on her hip, waiting.