“We should see her safe home. She has been through a horrible ordeal,” Caroline said.
“So have I,” he said. “She is her father’s problem. You are mine.”
Anthony lifted her in his arms, and for the first time, she realized the strength had drained out of her legs. Caroline sagged against him, taking in the spicy-sweet scent of him, the scent she had missed so much over the three weeks of his absence.
He did not put her on her horse, as she had expected him to. Instead, he placed her on his saddle and rose behind her onto Achilles’s back, pulling her close so her bottom nestled against his thighs. “Be still,” Anthony said. She could hear behind the anger in his voice that he was weary. She wondered what he had been doing in the city to make himself so tired.
Caroline said not a word but felt her hunger for her husband rising along with the hunger for food. She had tasted death as well as victory in her enemy’s blood, and now she shook with it—and with the need to prove to herself that she was still alive.
When they rode into the stable, she saw Bernard, the head of Anthony’s stables, standing at attention. The grooms waited for their master’s orders, bracing themselves for his temper. The master of the stables stood ready to take whatever punishment the earl would hand out.
Anthony slid down from his stallion, handing his reins to a waiting groom. Before he brought Caroline down, he faced Bernard.
“Never let my wife ride out alone. Two men go with her at all times. And they must go armed.”
“Aye, my lord.”
“Anthony, that is ridiculous,” Caroline said, leaping down from Achilles with no help from her husband. “I do not need a keeper.”
He faced her then, and she saw his anger with no lust to blunt the edge of it. “We will not speak of it here. You will do as I tell you.”
“Not when what you tell me is so unreasonable.”
“You were almost killed.”
“No. The intruder was almost killed. I had my knife at his throat. It was you who let him go.”
She saw the looks of horror on the faces of the grooms at her cutting words. Anthony did not speak to her again but took her by the arm and began to drag her toward the house.
She took a deep breath and set her face in calm lines, working to keep her temper. Clearly, she was not done fighting yet.
***
Anthony strode into the house past the servants without a word even to Billings. He slowed his steps so Caroline could take the staircase with him. He was tempted to sweep her into his arms and carry her, but he was afraid of his anger.
He kicked open the door to her bedroom. Tabby dropped the soap she had been carrying along with its basket, so both rolled across the polished floor in different directions.
“Your tub is full already, my lady,” Tabby said. The girl was less used to the wild swings of a man’s emotions, for she simply ignored Anthony’s anger and spoke to Caroline as if he were not there. “I’ve sprinkled in jasmine scent and rose petals, just as you like.”
“Thank you,” Caroline answered.
Anthony took in the rumpled gown his wife wore and the blood on her green velvet riding habit. His eyes fell a second time on the men’s breeches beneath the trussed-up dress, and he turned away so he would not have to look at her again until the room was cleared.
She continued to issue orders in a calm, clear voice, as if it were any other night in the country. “Send food up, Tabby. We will take our evening meal in here,” Caroline said.
“Yes, my lady.”
Tabby cast one fearful glance back at them, and then left.
Anthony took a deep breath and turned back to his wife. “Take those breeches off.”
His wife ignored his words as if he had not spoken. “You let him escape,” Caroline said.
Anthony’s black rage consumed him. He closed his eyes against it, reaching for the edges of his control even as he felt it slipping away. His wife had almost died. She had brandished a weapon at a man who very easily might have killed her, and she still labored under the delusion she could have won the fight.
“My men are even now searching the countryside. They will not find him in the dark.”
“I could have killed him,” Caroline said.
Anthony fought to see Caroline through the black haze of his anger. It took him several heartbeats, but he was finally able to see his young wife, a woman little more than half his age, a woman who barely reached his shoulder. He saw the barley strands still caught in the golden beauty of her hair. He saw the blood on her face, on her hand, and on the sleeve of her gown. In his mind’s eye, he watched again as that man dragged her beneath him.
His anger began to shift into fear. He had felt this same horror and helplessness the entire week Anne had been missing. He had thought her dead or worse as he scoured the countryside, looking for her. He had almost collapsed as his mother had when Anne returned home, safe if not unharmed. Carlyle, villain though he was, had never drawn a weapon against her. Anne’s life had not been threatened; she had merely been ruined then abandoned. Caroline had been a hairsbreadth away from losing her life, and she was too foolish to know it.
Anthony clutched her, desperation consuming him as his anger began to fade. He almost shook with the need to embrace her, but he held back. He still feared his own temper.
“I should beat your disobedience out of you.”
“You might try, my lord. You saw what I did to the last man who attacked me.” Her gaze remained steady on his.
“I saw you wrap your legs around him like a common whore.”
“I had to. Let me show you the hold. I would have killed him, I swear. He would never have harmed me.”
“I do not want you to show me that ‘hold,’ as you call it, or any other. Caroline, you don’t seem to grasp the salient point here. He would have killed you had I not been there,” Anthony said.
“No,” Caroline said. “I would not have allowed it.”
“He was a man more than twice your size and weight. If he had wanted you dead, you would be dead.”
“Anthony, I am trained to fight. I tell you, I would have been the death of him.”
The last of his anger drained from him, along with the strength it had given him. He let her go, stepping away from her. He knew of no way to make this woman see reason. He had been told all his life that women were incapable of it, and Caroline seemed bent on proving the theory right.
“And how would you have lived with that? With a man’s lifeblood on your hands?”
Caroline looked as if his words had struck her at last. Something seemed to have penetrated her mistaken certainty in her own invincibility. “He was a bad man,” she said. “He tried to rape that girl. He attacked me.”
“I do not disagree with you, Caroline. But if you had killed him, as you say you wished to, it would have changed you for the rest of your life, and not for the better.”
She did not speak but stared at him as if she were truly listening to him for the first time.
“I have spent years at war. I know what I am talking about.”
“You have killed many men,” she said, looking at him as if she had never seen him before.
His friendship with her father stemmed from the campaigns against Bonaparte. His life on the Continent, his time at war, was something he would never speak of with her, that evening or ever.
“Even if you have no respect for me, you must have a care for your own safety.” Anthony spoke calmly, his voice low. Caroline tilted her head as if to hear him better, a look of surprise on her face.
“I do respect you, Anthony. But I also respect myself. I am used to listening to my own judgment.”
She faced him without bending, as fearless and foolish as she had been in the barley grass. Anthony moved across the room and sank into the armchair by the fireplace, his head in his hands.
“If he had killed you, it would have been the death of me.”
Chapter 19
That con
cession from her husband’s lips took her breath away. Caroline stood a room apart from him, staring at the slump of his shoulders. For the first time in their marriage, her husband almost looked defeated.
She set aside her own exhaustion, which was beginning to make her joints feel like lead. Her struggle with the man in the field had taken more of a toll than she had thought it would. She had not kept up her training in more than a month, and she could feel that neglect in the muscles of her arms.
No matter what Anthony said, she would have to find a teacher in Shropshire and continue to practice, or it would be too dangerous for her to carry a knife at all. She had worked too many years, and she was too proud of her abilities to give up her blades now. Those skills had been the only link to her father all the years he was away at war. Now that she was gone from his house forever, she cherished her talent to wield a blade even more.
“I am sorry I spoke so harshly in front of the grooms in the stable. I am sorry to have pained you.”
He raised his head at her apology. Caroline swallowed her pride and let her anger go. Anthony stood and crossed the room to her. He did not touch her but searched her face as he spoke. “I will let you keep your horse. I will ride out with you when my schedule permits. And when it does not, you will ride out with two armed men or not at all.”
“Keep my horse? Anthony, of course I will keep Hercules. I would sooner cut off my own arm than give him up.” She swallowed the anger that threatened to rise again at his high-handedness. “And why must two men ride with me?”
“I have enemies, Caroline. You must be cautious.”
She was too tired to question him about who those enemies might be. She would tell him what he wished to hear today and do as she pleased tomorrow. She would find a way around his men in the stables. She felt a niggling sense of guilt at the lie, but she found she was too tired to fight him anymore that day.
“All right, Anthony.”
His arms came around her, and his touch was almost tender as he raised her up and carried her behind the bathing screen.
Anthony drew her riding habit from her, unfastening her gown with care as if afraid to hurt her. He let the dress fall so it pooled at her feet, then lifted her out of it. He moved her closer to the light from the window so he might see her skin.
He ran his hands over the bruises along her side where she had fallen beneath the man who had held her in his grip. Anthony caressed each injury as if it pained him. He drew her shift over her head until she was standing only in the breeches she had taken from a stable hand.
Her husband drew her close. “I am the only one to wear breeches in this family, Caroline.”
“But they are so much more sensible for riding,” she said.
“And for knife fighting, which you must promise me you will never do again.”
Caroline said nothing to that. Anthony lifted her into the tub of cooling water, her breeches left behind on the thick carpet. He stripped down and climbed into the tub with her. As always, his nakedness made her throat go dry. Caroline took in his beauty and was distracted from her irritation. It seemed she could not stay angry with him whenever his clothes came off.
Her hunger for him smoldered beneath her skin. She leaned back against him and luxuriated in his warmth.
“We need more water,” she said, trying to distract herself from the potent heat of his nearness. She tried desperately to remember what she had meant to say before his trousers fell to the carpet.
“We have enough.”
Her husband lathered his hands and washed her, and she softened under his touch. He soaped her hair and breasts, her thighs and stomach, each curve heating as his hands ran over it.
With all the blood and dirt washed from her body and from his, Anthony rose from the tub. Caroline murmured in protest, too languid to do anything else. He helped her to her feet, then took up a pitcher of warm water and rinsed the last of the soap from her skin. Anthony kissed her as he lowered the empty pitcher to the floor.
He helped her climb out of the bath, handling her carefully, as if she might break between his hands. Caroline stood dripping on the soft rug, and Anthony began to rub her dry. As his hands lingered on her breasts, she moaned, pressing herself against him.
She raised herself on her toes to kiss him, leaning into his strength. She would think about the things that irritated her about her husband tomorrow.
***
Anthony carried her to their marriage bed and laid her down, her wet hair gleaming gold in the firelight. He wondered why he had gone to his mistress at all, when such bounty was his. He pushed away the memory of her reckless disobedience, of her defiance before his men in the stable. He would deal with that tomorrow. For now, Anthony bent to kiss her, drinking in her sigh of pleasure, his lips warm over hers.
Caroline met his mouth with hers as if to devour him, and he let her push him back onto the silk sheets. Her long hair fell over one shoulder, hiding her body from him. She pushed her wet hair out of her way, her lips and tongue and teeth moving over him. She rose over Anthony in their bed and sheathed him in her body. She began to move without his prompting, riding him as she would her stallion.
Anthony was shocked, even as his sudden pleasure consumed him. He had never taught her such boldness. But in the candlelight, her face showed only innocence and her desire for him.
He gave himself over to her, then to the feel of her body on his. His hands slid over her breasts, kneading them, until she gasped and leaned down, closer to his touch, riding him still.
He moved toward the peak of pleasure, and he tried desperately to hold himself back. His wife rode him harder when she felt his resistance, and for the first time since he was a green boy, Anthony came against his will, unable to control himself.
Caroline joined him at his peak, falling against him as the last of his seed shuddered into her. She lay across his chest as if slain. Anthony took in the scent of her skin.
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” he asked.
Caroline smiled, her voice low, her tone deep with satisfaction. She writhed against him, and he saw that in her languor she could barely lift her head.
“Why, you taught me, my lord. I never fought with a soul before I met and married you.”
A rumble of laughter came from deep in his chest. He stroked her back, the damp flesh that was still warmed by his own. “No, Wife. Where did you learn to wield a knife?”
“My father’s veterans taught me. He wanted me to learn, in case I was ever alone and in need.”
“Fencing, archery, daggers. Is there no end to your womanly accomplishments?”
Caroline did not rise to that bait but swatted him half-heartedly, her hand lingering on his chest, the gesture turning into a sleepy caress. Anthony laughed again but knew he must use that moment to teach her, whether she wanted to listen to him or not.
“You can put your knives away, Caroline. You will never be alone and in need for as long as I live.”
“That remains to be seen, Anthony. But let’s not argue anymore tonight. I find I am too weary.” She raised her head and pressed her lips to his temple.
He meant to chide her again, to speak with her once more about the need for her to obey him in all things, but the need did not seem as pressing as the softness of her body against his, and as the sweet sleep that dragged at his limbs. He wrapped his arms around her and took her with him into it.
They slept until past midnight. Anthony woke to find Caroline’s head on his chest, the light from the fire beginning to burn down. He took in the jasmine scent of her and kissed her hair.
“I have something for you, Caroline.”
His wife gave him a wicked smile and boldly ran her hand over his body. She cupped him in her palm. “Indeed, my lord. And I have something for you.”
Guilt gnawed at the edges of his pleasure, and he wondered at it. He never felt guilt. It was not in his nature.
But then he remembered the pearl he had given his mistress
. That black pearl pressed on his mind like a boulder. Try as he might, he could not push aside the thought of it.
His wife had not yet seen his gift to her. The sudden memory of Caroline’s pearl, the creamy purity of it, was like a balm on his soul. He would give her that pearl, and his guilt would fade into nothing.
Anthony drew away, kissing her one last time, his lips lingering on hers. “Stay here,” he commanded as he rose from their bed.
“Am I your dog, to fetch and heel as well?” she asked.
He ignored her gibe to retrieve the pearl from his coat pocket. She reached for him as he returned.
He wanted to lose himself in her flesh again, to forget London and his mistress, the man who had attacked his wife, and Carlyle altogether, but he knew he could not put those things aside. He pressed his lips not to her mouth but to her temple. When he did that, she sighed in defeat.
“What do you bring me, Husband?”
“This,” he said, handing her a velvet bag tied with a strand of silk.
She looked puzzled. Anthony laughed as she drew the bag open.
His wife was still smiling at him when the jewel fell into the palm of her hand. Tears filled her eyes, and he opened his mouth to apologize, to say he would bring her diamonds instead. But when she smiled, he saw they were tears of joy.
“For me?” she asked.
Anthony thought his heart would break as he looked at his wife holding the alabaster pearl as if it was a gift from God. He would have bought every pearl the jeweler had and laid them all at Caroline’s feet if he had known she would look at him like that.
“For you,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.
She launched herself at him and clung to him as though he had saved her from drowning. He kissed her golden hair and listened as she sniffled and dried her eyes on the skin of his chest. The same woman in his arms, weeping over his gift, just the day before had stood alone to face an enemy twice her size, undaunted. How many facets lived behind the eyes of this one woman?
“I love it. Put it on me. Please.”
The gold and pearl were warm from her hand as he clasped the chain around her throat. As he watched the pearl fall between her breasts, he knew he would buy her many more pearls to wear with that one.
How to Tame a Willful Wife Page 14