by Mary Balogh
“I think you are right,” she said, drawing her head back and looking at him in the darkness again. “I think we have to go on and just hope that time will bring some healing, some—well, something. I think you are right. I am so tired of hating.”
His fingers, feathering through her hair, felt soothing. “After a week or two of appearances here,” he said, “I will take you to Chalcote, my dear. You will like it there, I believe. There we can learn to be comfortable together.”
“Chalcote,” she said. “Is that not near Highmoor House?”
“Yes.” His hand stilled for a moment. “Just a few miles away.”
“That is where—” she said, and broke off. That was where Lionel’s uncle lived. That was where Lionel had spent the spring two years ago when she should have been making her come-out and when they should have become officially engaged.
“Yes,” he said, seeming to read her thoughts. “Two years ago. Just before I went north to spend the summer with my father. I did not spend the summer as it happened. I left within the month with my stepmother.”
She closed her eyes. “Chalcote,” she said. “I want to go there. Perhaps there I can forget. Perhaps there we can make something of this marriage after all, Gabriel.”
She was giving in to the enemy again. She had no moral fiber at all, she believed. But he had not done that horrible thing with his stepmother. She believed him on that. And he said he had not written that letter. It made no sense, but he was adamant about it while admitting everything else.
Something was nagging at her consciousness. Something that was almost there but not quite. Something that maddeningly refused to present itself to her conscious mind for consideration.
“Jennifer,” her husband was saying, “whether you wish it or not, I will be claiming my marital rights each night. I believe it is essential to any hope we have for the future. But only once each night. If I desire you more than once, you will have the right to refuse the second and any succeeding time.”
She swallowed and rested her forehead against his chest.
“I desire you now,” he said.
She could say no. He was giving her that freedom. That power. She had no idea how long they had slept. But it was still dark. If she wished, she could spend the rest of the night alone. She could have herself back to herself at least until tomorrow night.
She tipped up her face once more. “Then have me,” she said. “I am your wife.”
She could feel as soon as he drew her close against his length and kissed her that he was very ready for her again. She felt a deep throbbing where she was already sore and wanted him there once more.
She closed her mind to the knowledge that he was the wrong man and that if she had any firm moral convictions at all, she would be fighting with everything she had against this powerful physical attraction she had always felt for him.
“My love,” he whispered against her mouth.
She wondered if he meant it.
15
HE SAT DOWN ALONE TO BREAKFAST. HE WAS considerably later than usual. Although his servants held to their usual impassive expressions, he could almost imagine the smirks and knowing looks they exchanged behind his back. He felt almost embarrassed.
Jennifer had been deeply asleep when he woke up, disoriented, her body pressed to his and entwined with his. It had taken him several minutes to free himself and remove himself from her bed without waking her. Indeed, she must have been deeply asleep not to have woken.
He had covered her to the chin before picking up his dressing gown and going through her dressing room to his. He had been afraid that the chill of the morning and the removal of his body heat would waken her. Or perhaps that strange embarrassment he felt had caused him to cover her so that her maid would not realize that she slept naked. Her maid was going to discover that fact of her mistress’s marriage sooner or later anyway.
The post had been delivered already. A small pile of letters was stacked neatly beside his place at the breakfast table, and even a few invitations, he could see, if he was not mistaken. That at least was surprising. He had thought the best he could do was to take Jennifer to those entertainments for which he had already received invitations before the scandal, and to places, like the park and the theater, for which he needed no invitation at all.
He shuffled through the pile and stopped abruptly at one letter. Good Lord, what a strange, strange coincidence. It was a letter from Catherine, the first he had received since his return. He picked it up eagerly, wondering if there was anything in it that might set Jennifer’s mind at rest while they waited several weeks, perhaps a few months, for a reply to the letters they would write this morning—or perhaps this afternoon. She had said last night that she believed him, but he could feel the confusion of her mind. He knew that there was a large element of doubt mixed in with the belief, and the fear that he was making her into his dupe.
He read carefully and smiled to himself as he set the letter down and ate his breakfast before tackling the rest of the pile or reading his newspaper.
An hour later he wandered back upstairs, even though this was the time of day he usually spent at White’s and there was nothing stopping him from going there today. Indeed, he would probably have to endure merciless teasing and some ribaldry from a few friends and acquaintances if he did not go.
He went into his dressing room, opened the door quietly into his wife’s to find it empty, opened the door even more quietly into her bedchamber, and went in.
She was still sleeping, the covers pushed down to her waist. Her face was half buried in the pillow he had used, one hand pushed beneath it. Her hair, tangled and gloriously rich in color, acted as a kind of blanket but it could not totally hide the creaminess of her skin and the full shapeliness of the breast that was not hidden against the mattress.
Her maid, he noted ruefully, had been in already. There was a cup of chocolate on the nightstand, looking as if it was probably cold. Well, his servants could at least be thoroughly satisfied now that the marriage of their earl and countess had been consummated.
He was glad that she was sleeping so long and so deeply. She must have been totally exhausted in every way. He felt cautiously hopeful this morning. Hopeful that something might be made of the marriage that neither of them had either wanted or expected. She was tired of hating, she had said, though two days ago she had sworn to hate him for the rest of her life. And though she had wept while he was consummating their marriage, doubtless because he was not Kersey, she had allowed him to have her a second time. He had given her the freedom to refuse and she had used that freedom to say yes.
He had loved her with slow thoroughness, and her body had responded, first with relaxation, and then with pleasure. She had said nothing and had kept her eyes closed and her body still. She had kept her arms on the bed at her sides. But he had read the signs of increased body heat and deeper breathing and tautened muscles giving place again to relaxation and a sighing of expelled breath just before he released into her.
There was pleasure to be found together in bed. It was not everything. It was not even perhaps very much when they must live together out of bed all day. But it was something. Perhaps a physical tenderness would in time translate into emotional contentment.
She stirred, stretching in a manner that caused an immediate tightening in his groin. He wondered if he should turn and tiptoe from the room before she awoke fully, but he stayed where he was, watching her. He had called her his love more than once last night while in the process of making love to her. He had not done so deliberately. It had not been part of his plan to show her some tenderness. The words had been spontaneous. Had he meant them? He had never used them to any mistress or casual amour.
Was she his love?
And then she rolled over onto her back, stretched again, her palms pushing against the headboard of the bed, and opened her eyes. Her head turned sharply as she became aware of him standing there.
God, but she was magnificent.
His eyes confirmed what his body had felt during the night. He had an unexpected flashing image of his child suckling at one of those breasts. “Good morning, my dear,” he said.
He could almost see her mind registering the fact that he was fully dressed while she was naked—and exposed to the waist with her arms raised above her head. She lowered them hastily and jerked the bedcovers up to her chin. She colored rosily. He found the gesture of exaggerated modesty curiously endearing. He had been beneath those covers with her all night and they had twice been as intimate together as man and woman can be.
“Good morning, my l-lor—Gabriel,” she said. “What time is it?”
“I believe it lacks a little of noon,” he said. He smiled. “But only a very little.”
Her eyes widened. “I never sleep late,” she said.
“You have never before had a wedding night,” he said, and watched her flush deepen. “I have something to show you,” he said. “Will you do me the honor of joining me at the breakfast table in half an hour?”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked.
Ah, the night and the physical union and sexual pleasure it had brought them both had not healed many breaches after all. Perhaps none.
“Yes,” he said. “You may eat alone if you wish, my dear. Your days may be almost entirely your own, if you so choose, and your nights too except for the one use of my rights I have told you I will insist upon. You are not my prisoner, Jennifer. Only my wife.”
He could hear her drawing breath. “Half an hour?” she said.
“I will ring for your maid as I go back through your dressing room,” he said. He took a step forward and leaned over her to kiss her fully and somewhat lingeringly on the mouth. “Thank you for the free gift of yourself you made me last night. It was more precious to me than jewels.” He had a hand on either side of her head on the pillow.
“I am your wife,” she said.
“Yes.” He gazed into her eyes. “Are you sore this morning? It was perhaps selfish of me, even with your permission, to use you a second time when your body was newly opened.”
He did not believe he was trying to shock her. He did not know what his motive was. To establish some intimacy between them, perhaps, that was not just physical. He felt the strange need to be able to talk with her on even the most intimate of topics. He felt the need for—for a marriage.
“Gabriel.” She touched her fingertips to his cheek as he remembered her doing in Lady Bromley’s orchard, and then closed her eyes and bit her lip. “Nothing. It does not matter. No, I am not sore.” She laughed a little but did not open her eyes. “I suppose I could have used it as an excuse to be free of you tonight and perhaps tomorrow night, could I not? I do not want to be free of you. I cannot be, and I do not want the illusion of freedom. I want to know that this is my life forever after. I want to accustom myself to the knowledge and to the fact. I can only go forward. You were quite right about that. Make me feel married to you, then. Take me as often as you wish, night or day. I want to forget how and why we came together and what I left behind. Make me forget. You can, you know. I believe you must have realized that I find you attractive and always have.”
There was enough in her words to chill him for an eternity and to warm him for as long a time. He stood up and she opened her eyes.
“Yes.” He nodded. “We are going to fall in love, Jennifer. We are going to be happy together despite the seemingly insuperable odds. I promise you.” He turned and made his way through her dressing room, pulling on the bell rope as he did so, and back to his own. His heart was heavy—and soaring with hope.
ALTHOUGH SHE PULLED HER nightgown back on before going through into her dressing room, she knew that her maid must have seen her naked in bed. She felt intensely embarrassed and could feel herself flush hotly when her maid came bustling into the dressing room carrying a pitcher of steaming water.
Jennifer made her way down the stairs half an hour later, her hair neatly dressed, her morning gown covering her modestly. In some ways it was hard to believe that what had happened during the night had really happened at all, except that even with her previous knowledge and what Aunt Agatha had told her, she could not possibly have dreamed such intimacy and such sensations. And she could feel that it had happened. She was sore, despite what she had told him, but it was not a totally unpleasant feeling.
She was a married lady. She was married to Gabriel, Earl of Thornhill. She drew a deep breath as the footman at whom she had smiled warmly opened the door into what she assumed must be the breakfast room. What must he think, he and all the other servants, of the fact that she was coming down to breakfast well after noon? They would think that she had been kept busy by her bridegroom through much of the night and had caught up with her sleep during the morning, that was what. And they would not be far wrong.
She braced herself for her sight of him again. He really must be the devil or a wizard of some sort. When she could not see him, she could keep her mind partly sane and know him for who and what he was. And yet when she saw him, and especially when he was close to her … Well, she had understated the case when she had told him that she found him attractive. She was very much afraid that her body was beginning to crave his and that her mind was being dragged along with it.
And yet these feelings were not wholly unwelcome, she thought, as she entered the room and he hurried toward her from where he had been standing before a window to take her hand and raise it to his lips. Something deep inside her—close to where twice last night he had shared her body—somersaulted and she yearned to forget everything and let herself fall in love with him, mind and soul as well as body. With her body she already loved him, she realized, but she refused to allow her mind to ask her how it could be so when for five years she had loved another.
No, these half-unwilling feelings for him were not unwelcome. She must make the best of the life she had been forced into—by him. The rest of her life, long or short, was all she would ever have, after all.
“Come and sit down,” he said, leading her to the place next to the head of the table, and seating her. He signaled to the butler to bring her the hot dishes and to fill her coffee cup. “Will you be pleased to know that we have received invitations this morning to a ball, a concert, and a rout? Addressed to the Earl and Countess of Thornhill, by the way. News travels faster than light in London during the Season.”
Each morning usually brought a dizzying number of invitations. Three was a very paltry number. But it was certainly three more than she had expected—or wanted.
“I would prefer to go home to Chalcote,” she said, deliberately calling it home, accustoming her mind to the fact that it really was home now because it was his and she was his wife.
“Soon.” He covered her hand on the table with his. “We will be seen in all the right places for a week first. As much as anything, I have a mind to show you off and to throw every other male in London into the doldrums because you are mine and beyond anyone else’s reach.”
He smiled and looked almost boyish in his lightheartedness. But he had made a mistake to remind her of the obsession to have her to himself that was responsible for her being here now with him. Could there be any kinship between obsession and love? Could he ever love her? He had promised earlier in her bedchamber that they would fall in love. Not she, but they. Did he not love her yet, then? It was so hard to understand why he had acted as he had.
“No,” he said very quietly after signaling the butler to leave, “don’t look haunted again. I said the wrong thing, did I not? I have a letter to show you when you have finished eating. I think you will be a little happier after you have read it.”
She was not hungry. She made to push her plate away from her but his voice stopped her.
“Eat every mouthful,” he said. “We will sit here until you have done so. You might have eaten—or not eaten—alone, Jennifer, but you agreed to allow me to join you here. Now you must endure my playing tyrant. You are not going to make yourself
ill from lack of food.”
She picked up her knife and fork and ate her way doggedly through the food she had allowed the butler to put on her plate. No, she was not going to let it happen either. She was not going to present a wan, skeletal aspect to the world. And if her womb was to house his child for nine months, as it probably would soon, she would make it a warm and welcoming and well-fed place. It would be her child too.
“There,” she said, looking up at him with some defiance when she was finished. “Are you satisfied?”
He was smiling at her with what looked to be affection as well as amusement. He chuckled. “Are you planning always to be so obedient?” he asked. “Life with you might just be paradise, my love. I want you to read this letter, if you will. Aloud. It arrived just this morning.” He handed her a sheet of paper.
It was covered with closely spaced writing in an elegant hand. My dearest Gabriel, she read. Her eyes flew down the page to the signature. Catherine. His stepmother!
“Aloud, please,” he said again.
“ ‘My dearest Gabriel,’ ” she read in a monotone after drawing a deep breath, “ ‘Time flies along so fast. I fully intended to send a letter speeding after you within a few days of your departure. Forgive the delay. I wanted—and want—to thank you in a more permanent fashion than the words I have already spoken to you for all you have done for me when you might with perfect justification have turned your back on me. I want to thank you for giving me and Eliza more than a year of your life. I will not forget your sacrifice, my dear.’ ”
Jennifer looked up at him. He was watching her with eyes that seemed to burn.
“ ‘I dread to think what would have happened to me without your kindness and protection,’ ” she continued. “ ‘I know I do not deserve the happiness I feel in this lovely home you found for me, in this beautiful country, in my daughter, and—oh, yes, Gabriel—in the new love I have found, which quite puts into the shade the old love. You said it would happen to me and it has. He is Count Ernst Moritz. I do not believe you met him, though I was acquainted with him before you left. He is very close to a declaration. My woman’s intuition assures me of it! But more of that in another letter. This is to be a letter of thanks.