When the talk turned to the theater, she listened closely, for she had never seen a play.
“Titania, Prinny’s favorite actress, will produce The Taming of the Shrew this winter,” Lord Bathurst said.
“I have always hated that play,” Caroline said. She felt the weight of Anthony’s censure as heavy as a stone, but she ignored him.
“Hate Shakespeare? How can that be, my lady? A woman of your wit and sensibility must love the Bard.” Carlyle smiled at her, also ignoring her husband as he refilled her glass of Madeira.
“Indeed, my lord, I am fond of Shakespeare in general, but that play is an anathema to women everywhere. Forced into marriage against her will, Katherine is taken from her home and starved into submission. What thinking person in this day of enlightenment could embrace such a theme?”
She looked at Anthony then. His color had risen beneath his tan. His dark eyes rested on her so intently his doxies turned away to hunt better prey on either side. She smiled to see her husband abandoned by his whores.
“But Lady Ravensbrook, Katherine instructs the other wives in the end to serve their husbands with sweetness and obedience.”
“As well she might, after having been starved and endlessly berated. One hopes that even Bonaparte would treat prisoners of war better. All I say, gentlemen, is that play is not one of Shakespeare’s finer works.”
“And which plays do you prefer, my lady?” Admiral Washburn asked.
“Hamlet and Macbeth. Both are full of intrigue, and both are quite bloody.”
The company laughed, save for the doxies, who glared at her for taking so much of the gentlemen’s time. Her husband stared at her as if she had grown a second head.
She ate the last bite of her dessert, lingering over the fine chocolate and sweet cream. Clearly Lord Pembroke selected his cook with more care than he did his guests.
There were no ladies present, save herself in her virginal white gown trimmed in pink, so the gentlemen did not hang back for cigars and port but led their chosen companions into the drawing room. Caroline hesitated before she rose from her chair, but Anthony did not come to escort her.
Viscount Carlyle was kind enough to lead her into the drawing room when her husband did not seek her out. The carpets had been taken up, and as Caroline watched, gentlemen and their escorts began to waltz.
No doubt, Carlyle planned to ask her to dance, for he smiled down at her, his eyes gleaming as he offered his hand.
Just as she was about to accept, Anthony was upon her, his eyes darkened with fury to an almost deadly shade of black. He did not speak to Viscount Carlyle at all, but something passed between the two men that made Caroline wonder how well they knew each other.
Without a word, Victor bowed to her and withdrew, taking a buxom redhead onto the dance floor.
Anthony wasted no time in niceties. “Caroline, come away from here.”
“I am enjoying myself, my lord. Your friends are quite charming.”
“I will not allow you to spend another moment among these whores.” His voice was a hiss in her ear, and her eyes narrowed as she gazed up at him.
“Indeed, my lord? You seem to spend a great deal of time among them.”
Anthony stopped speaking altogether and dragged her out of the room. He moved so quickly she could not even say good night to any of the gentlemen present. Caroline did not look at her husband as he led her away like a child, his grip hard on her arm.
As they left, Caroline caught the eye of their host. Pembroke smiled at her from where he sat, a woman hanging on each arm and a third perched on his knee. He raised his glass to Anthony and Caroline in salute as they passed. She shook her head. Pembroke was incorrigible, but she found she was not offended by the idiocy of the evening. There was a sorrow in Pembroke’s eyes, some shadow of loss hidden behind his mindless pursuit of pleasure. Caroline was sorry to see his pain.
She forgot all about Pembroke and his sorrow at the foot of the stairs when her husband lifted her into his arms like a sack of meal.
“Put me down this instant. Have you gone mad?”
Fury burned in his eyes. Gone was the calm, collected man who had sat silent at dinner. She felt a moment of elation that his iron control had begun to crack.
“If I am mad, you have driven me to it.”
He swept her up the stairs, his hands hard on her body. He carried her easily, as if she weighed nothing, while Lord Pembroke’s footmen watched from below without saying a word.
Chapter 15
Anthony kicked open the door to her borrowed bedroom. He set her on her feet on the plush carpet and bolted the door behind them
“Caroline, you cannot do as you wish every moment of the day. You cannot sit and eat among courtesans. I will not allow it.”
She drew off her gown, pulling the pins out of her hair and laying them down for Tabby to find the next day.
“I am sick of hearing what you will and will not allow. I follow where you lead me, Anthony. If you sit among ladies of the evening, then I will sit among them with you.”
She turned her back on him and slipped on her nightgown. Anthony stood by the door, staring at her.
“When you defy me, you make me a laughingstock, Caroline.”
A maid had left a carafe of wine and two glasses for them. Caroline poured herself a glass and sipped at it. She filled the second glass, as well, thinking to offer it to Anthony, but he still glowered at her.
“Anthony, I did not defy you. I took a meal in company and was going to dance with a man I met for the first time in my father’s house. If this passes for defiance in London, I know not what to tell you.”
He crossed the room to her with a slow, stalking stride, his face in shadow from the firelight behind him.
“You came among courtesans,” he said. “You dined among the most debauched men in England. The man with whom you took your dinner, who gave you your first glass of wine this evening, is someone I would not have you acquainted with.”
“Why ever not? For heaven’s sake, my father knows him. Viscount Carlyle is a perfect gentleman.”
“I am your husband. Never speak to him or to any strange man without my express permission.”
The idiotic high-handedness of that statement brought Caroline up short.
“That’s rich, my lord. You had two doxies courting you, and you take me to task for drinking wine with a friend of my father?”
“Carlyle is not fit company for you.”
“Nor was anyone else there, it seems. But I ate among the people you brought me to,” she said.
“You must never speak to a man unless I have introduced you first. There are men in the world who would behave in ways you simply cannot imagine.”
“And Viscount Carlyle, a man who was once a guest in my father’s home, is one of them?”
“Yes.”
Caroline turned her back on him. She was too angry to speak.
Anthony’s hands were on her then, bringing her to face him, the strength of his touch sudden and unyielding. She dropped her glass, and the red wine poured out across the cream carpet, the thick burgundy splattering the hem of her fine linen nightgown. She would have sworn under her breath, but she could not take her eyes from her husband’s face.
“Caroline, I would care for you as best I can. If I ask you to stay above stairs, you must trust that I have good reason.”
His voice was gentle for the first time that day. For some reason, his gentleness hurt her as his anger did not. All she could see in that moment were those women in Pembroke’s dining room, pressing their heavy breasts against him.
“I do not trust you, my lord. And I have reason of my own.”
“You can trust me, Caroline. You can trust me to care for you as best I can, to protect you from folly and danger every day for the rest of my life.”
“From whose folly, my lord? Yours or my own?”
Anthony sighed then, and she felt the last of his anger drain from him as the burgundy had dr
ained across the carpet at their feet.
Anthony lifted her in his arms. He carried her to the bed without another word between them and set her down on the silken coverlet.
She thought he would leave her, but he stripped instead, his nakedness beautiful in the candlelight. The hard planes of his body called to her, even though she knew nothing had been settled between them. She began to wonder if anything ever would.
Anthony turned to her, and she saw his eyes had begun to gleam with desire. The pain of his insult began to heal a little as he looked at her as if he would worship her body with his own, just as he had sworn on their wedding day.
He reached out and ran his hand over the soft lawn of her thin nightgown, exploring her curves as if for the first time. Caroline lay back and let him touch her as he would, reveling in the heat of his hands as he drew her wine-stained gown over her head and tossed it away.
He lay on top of her, his hands in her hair, pulling her head back so her mouth was trapped under his. His kiss was hard against her lips, conveying his desire and his frustration together. She kissed him back, her own frustration evident in her touch.
His hands gentled once more, and his lips lingered over hers. “You will never come among such people again,” he said.
“I will come where you lead me, Anthony.”
“Then come with me now,” he said.
He lowered his lips to her throat and suckled there as at her breast. She felt the bite of his teeth, a little nip of pain, a sharp sauce in a larger meal. Her lust flared as his teeth grazed her throat, trailing down; his lips closed over her breast. She moaned as he tasted her, hoping he might once again follow the line of her body down between her thighs. He might kiss her there as he had the night before. Caroline wondered what it would feel like if he used his teeth sparingly, as he had along her throat.
The thought made her moan again, and he met her eyes as he mounted her, one hand between them, coaxing her damp flesh to open to him and to the heavy pulse of his manhood. Caroline opened her legs for him, and she could see he was surprised at her boldness. But whatever she knew of lust and of pleasure, he had taught her.
For a moment, it was as if Anthony could see fearlessness in her eyes and liked what he saw. As he loomed over her, he kissed her, his lips sweet on hers with no trace of anger behind them.
Even as she took his tongue into her mouth, he entered her in one smooth stroke. She gasped, her mouth under his. He moved within her as he had the night before, raising her hips so his access to her was complete. Pleasure gripped her, harder than it had before. Her lungs were crushed with it. The pleasure mounted her even as he did until she cried out, calling his name. This time the pleasure did not stop but went on a second time, and when the tide of it finally receded, she could not speak at all.
Her name was on his lips when he shuddered with his release. She drank in the sound of it like wine.
When they were done, their passion spent, he kissed her once, then rolled away. Anthony found his clothes so casually, she feared whatever emotion she thought she had heard in his voice a moment before was a lie or a passing thing that came and went with his pleasure.
Caroline lay back against her pillows, feeling suddenly bereft. She watched as her husband dressed slowly in the firelight, the hard planes of his body beckoning to her, though she was already spent.
“Will you go to your whores then?” she asked as he drained the glass of wine she had poured for him.
Anthony turned to look at her, and she saw yet again his surprise at her boldness before he masked it.
“No,” he said. “I go to sleep in my own room. I suggest you do the same.”
“Sleep in your room?” she asked, her voice calm, her eyes never leaving his face.
Anthony came to the bed but did not even rest his weight on it. He leaned over and kissed her once, very lightly, before he drew away.
“I will get no sleep if you lie beside me.”
He unlocked the door. Caroline forced herself to lie as he had left her, the soft bedclothes spread beneath her. She forced herself to stillness through pride and strength of will.
She thought he would leave at once, but when he opened the door, Anthony turned back to look at her. She watched the heat of lust cross his face and the shadow of something else in his eyes, a tenderness that might have been only a trick of the feeble light. It was she who moved first, turning her back on him.
She did not move again until she heard the gentle click of the door. She let her tears come silently in case he stood by the door, so he would not hear her weep.
***
Anthony left his wife while he still had some vestige of self-control.
When he had seen her step into the dining room that night, he thought his heart would stop at the sight of her beauty. Dressed in a simple gown of white, she looked like an angel walking through the gates of Hell. He had wanted to go to her in that moment, to leave his supper club behind.
He had seen his Hellfire Club with new eyes. What was all in good fun a moment before now seemed sordid and pointless. The men who had seemed witty and rakish suddenly looked lost and alone, even with whores at their sides. The thought of his wife among those people, being seen by those men, even worse, being seen by those courtesans, almost made Anthony leap to his feet and carry her out of there. She should never have been allowed to come among Pembroke’s guests. No man present would ever have allowed his wife to know such gatherings existed.
Then Carlyle had claimed her as his dinner partner.
Anthony had felt the eyes of every man in the room on him, weighing his reaction. To keep up appearances, in order to continue the pleasant fiction that the Earl of Ravensbrook and Viscount Carlyle were simply rivals in trade and in Parliament, Anthony had to sit and watch the man speak to his wife, and do nothing.
He reminded himself of Anne, his poor sweet sister, left alone in Richmond. He knew one day he would try to bring her into Society again. He wanted her to have the chance at a happy life, a life with a husband and children, a life in which the haunted darkness in her eyes would finally fade away. It was Anne he kept before him all through that interminable dinner as he watched the slimy bastard sit close beside his wife, offering her wine.
Anthony had resolved to tell Caroline everything once they were alone in her room. But after dinner when she had not returned to his side, when she had moved to dance with Victor without even a glance at him, Anthony’s reason had snapped. He had carried her out of the party under the speculative eyes of his club, and even now, he did not give a damn what they thought.
He had not given a damn what Caroline thought, either. He was her husband. It was for him to protect her and what was left of her innocence, whether she wanted him to do so or not.
After he left her alone, Anthony tried to retire to his own bed, but he found the sight of it made him think of Caroline in hers, her long blond hair lying across the pillow in a stream of gold. He turned away from his empty bed and walked the halls of his friend’s home.
He faced another sleepless night, and without the scent of battle to keep him sharp, his lack of sleep began to grate on him. He moved toward the library to hide from his friends and their courtesans. No other man would seek the solace of books that night when there was so much else on offer.
He could hear the guests still laughing in the drawing room, with softer sounds coming from the open door to the terrace. Anthony needed silence and to be alone. Instead, in the library he found Pembroke seated among his books, a glass of brandy by his elbow, a cigar lit in his hand.
“Come and sit awhile with me,” Pembroke said.
“I thought you would be with your whores.”
“The women all look alike to me tonight. After seeing your wife’s purity, I found I lost my appetite.”
Pembroke’s smile did not reach his eyes. Anthony knew his friend well. Pembroke spent the dark hours of each night alone with a bottle beside him. There always came a point in the evening wh
en all the whores and gaming, all the pleasure he had ordered for himself began to sour, and Pembroke would sulk alone.
On the Continent, Anthony had sat up many a sleepless night at his friend’s side, neither man speaking. Only once, on the night before a battle from which neither expected to return alive did Pembroke stay sober and speak of what pained him. That night, Anthony’s friend spoke for the first and last time of the woman he had lost, the woman he would never see again. Arabella of the ice-blue eyes.
“I am sorry for this evening. I should have thrown them all out.”
“You and I both know you could not do that. Carlyle and I have kept up this farce for three years now. No doubt we will have to keep it up for many years to come.”
“Until your sister marries,” Pembroke says.
“And beyond,” Anthony answered. “So her husband will not cry foul.”
“I hope she finds a better man than that.”
“So do I. Do you think it likely?”
Pembroke did not answer but poured Anthony a glass of brandy. Anthony took a sip of the burning liquid but quickly set the glass back down. He began to pace the room as if searching for a book, but he could not focus on the printed word. He simply felt the need to move. He wanted to go for a ride on Achilles, but it was still too dark, and he would need to leave with his wife early that morning, for they had far to travel.
His mind returned to the sight of Caroline’s golden hair falling across her pillows. The memory of her gasps filled his ears as his pleasure rose slowly to consume him. Anthony could not escape these thoughts of his wife. He had left her less than an hour before, but already she haunted him as no other woman ever had. Anthony had always prided himself on his control and on the fact that no woman could hold him. As he walked the carpet in front of his friend, sleeplessness riding him as he rode Achilles, Anthony wondered if he had truly begun to lose his mind.
“So you love her,” Pembroke said.
How to Tame a Willful Wife Page 10