Chapter 20
From just inside the door of her bedroom, Phoebe watched her husband stalk over to the bed and begin undressing. Anger tensed his muscular frame. His actions, normally a study in masculine grace, were hurried and jerky. As she pondered the least upsetting way to continue a discussion he obviously did not want to have, Lucas yanked his shirt over his head. Her mind blanked and her heart stuttered.
His body left her both awestruck and unsettled, with its broad shoulders and chest, muscled arms, and taut stomach. Lucas would impress anyone with his clothes on. Without them, he was like nothing she had ever seen. Not that she made a habit of staring at half-naked men, but she suspected few could compete with her husband’s raw power and masculinity.
But, dear Lord, the scars. Pale, cruel lines scored his skin—one across his right bicep, another down the left forearm, a wicked one cutting from one side of his ribs to his waist, and the fourth . . . not a cut from a blade, but a faded and puckered bunching of skin, the evil remnant of a bullet that had obviously pierced his shoulder. She could not help but see his old wounds as an obscene reminder of human wickedness and of man’s sins against God.
Lucas tossed the shirt in the general direction of a chair before turning to see her standing frozen by the door. He raised a brow.
“What’s wrong?”
She cleared her throat. “You . . . you have so many scars.”
He glanced down at himself and shrugged. “Many battles, many years,” he replied as he started working on the fall of his trousers. “I was fortunate to survive and return with my limbs intact. Other men weren’t so lucky.”
Phoebe swallowed against a rush of nausea. The idea of Lucas lying injured on a battlefield, blood pouring from his wounds, made her stomach churn. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, willing her insides to settle. If she thought about that image much longer, she would have to race to the basin and empty her stomach.
“Phoebe, come here.” Her husband’s soothing voice forced her eyes open. He studied her, his expression grave but no longer angry. Then he held out his hand. “Sweetheart, you’ll catch cold if you stand there in the draft. Come to bed and get warm.”
The tenderness in his voice brought a rush of tears to her eyes, and longing twisted her insides. After all the trials of the day, she could think of nothing better than to hurry straight into the shelter of his arms, and take everything he would give her. But she knew such shelter would only be temporary, disappearing with the dawn and leaving their problems unresolved.
And that included the most immediate issue—whether Lucas intended to use violent means to deal with the smugglers crossing Merritt lands.
She walked slowly to the fire, turning her back to it. It gave little warmth, since the embers had burned low, but she had to keep her distance from Lucas, and that big, tempting bed, the bed where he would surely get her naked and mindless with passion in no time at all. “I wish to speak with you first, Lucas.”
His eyes closed and he groaned. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I am not.”
He dropped down onto the mattress, rubbing a hand over his face. “Christ, can tonight get any worse? Why do women always want to talk, especially in the middle of the night?”
She frowned, annoyed he would lump her in with other women, but decided it might be best to ignore the implication. “I am sorry, Lucas. I know you are tired, but this cannot wait until morning.”
“I’m not tired, I’m frustrated.” He gave her a hard stare. “Very frustrated, if you get my meaning.”
She decided to ignore that, too. “I do, but I need to know what you intend to do about the smugglers. I do not want another repeat of tonight’s incident.”
He snorted. “Oh, really?”
“Yes,” she replied tightly. “Mistletoe Manor cannot be turned into a battleground between those excise men and the smugglers. Anyone could get hurt, including our servants.”
“Believe me,” he retorted, “I want that as little as you do. But if the smuggling isn’t stopped, I guarantee someone will get hurt. Since we agree we don’t want his majesty’s agents trooping across our land again, then it’s up to me to put an end to it.”
Silence fell as she chewed on her lip, weighing the consequences of sharing her suspicions.
“Come on, Phoebe,” Lucas said. “Out with it.”
She met his watchful gaze, still worried how he might react. An impatient energy invested the air around him, but he held himself still, waiting for her to speak. She realized the importance of the moment, one that could build trust between them or go horribly awry. “I . . . I think the servants know something about the smuggling,” she finally said.
His lips twitched. “Why do you think so?”
“Because there can be no other explanation for their odd behavior. Mrs. Christmas in particular was very upset.” She frowned, trying to piece it together in her head.
Lucas leaned back on his elbows, watching her with open curiosity. “Well?” he prompted.
“I suspect the smugglers were hiding in the cellars the entire time Mr. Harper and his men were here.”
He let out a crack of laughter and pushed himself off the bed.
“Of course they were hiding in the cellars, goose. Why do you think I wouldn’t let Harper search the house? The last thing we needed was a pitched battle between smugglers—half of whom are probably from our own village—and the only honest group of excise men in the district. No, love. That was not how I wanted to end an already trying day.”
In a few long strides he was across the room and standing in front of her. All she could do was gape at him. “You knew all along?” she choked out.
He grinned, not bothering to dignify her silly question with an answer. Instead, he picked her up, teased her mouth with a light kiss, and carried her to the bed. His strength and easy mastery of her body sorely tempted her to yield to their mutual desire.
Not yet.
She tensed as he deposited her onto the disordered welter of pillows and bedclothes. “Why did you not tell me right away?” she asked.
He cast her a smoldering look clearly intended to bring the heat rushing back to her body. “As you can well imagine, I had other things on my mind,” he said in a growly voice.
Phoebe’s heart accelerated under his knowing gaze. Her annoyingly seductive husband was trying to distract her, but she would not be deterred. He had alleviated her anxiety to some degree, but she knew him well enough to suspect that he only deferred the outcome. “Yes, but—”
His temper finally snapped. “Oh, hell, Phoebe. Must we really finish this discussion tonight? Haven’t you had enough?”
His tone caught her like a freezing blast, obliterating the sensual heat between them. She pushed herself up onto the pillows and pulled her wrapper tightly around her. “Yes, I believe we must finish it,” she replied, trying to keep the hurt from her voice.
He sat sideways to her on the bed, staring straight ahead. His commanding profile seemed carved from rock, except where a muscle pulsed at his temple. The silence drew out as he struggled to bring his frustration under control.
Then he turned to face her. “Very well, then. What do you wish to know?”
“What do you intend to do about the smugglers?”
“I’ll ride into Maidstone tomorrow to meet with Harper. I need to find out the lay of the land—how big the gang is, what they’re running and when, where they come ashore.”
“Why do you need to know those things?”
“They will tell me how likely the smugglers are to use Merritt land in the future. Several old routes run from Seasalter to Faversham, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are even some tunnels right here on the estate. Some Merritts in the past were all too happy to turn a blind eye to smuggling—or even aided and abetted—but I don’t think your grandfather was one of them. Still, he was sick these last few years, and I suspect he rather lost a handle on things.”
She nodded slowly. Already
she could sense his mind racing to formulate a plan. That came as no surprise. Lucas was accustomed to action, and to facing problems head-on.
“Once you have that information, what will you do?”
“Put an end to the problem.”
The ruthless intent in his voice jolted her. “Ah, how exactly will you do that?”
“By employing whatever means are necessary. I will not allow smuggling on my lands, Phoebe, make no mistake about that. It’s a dangerous business, and I won’t have my wife or my people put at risk over a bloody run of French cognac. Christ! I didn’t spend years fighting the French to turn a blind eye to this sort of thing now.”
She understood his logic, but the likely result of that logic filled her with apprehension. “Will you . . . ?” she swallowed. “Will you . . . ?” She could not say the words.
He sighed and a terrible weariness tugged at the hard lines of his face. “Kill them? Not if I don’t have to. I’d prefer to hand them over to Harper to deal with.”
She eased out her breath. That was something, at least. But capturing a band of desperate smugglers actually sounded harder than killing them. And if they were truly desperate . . . well. She did not want to think about that, either, or what might happen to Lucas.
“Assuming you do catch them,” she said carefully, “what is likely to happen to them?”
“It depends. They could be thrown in jail, or even deported or hanged, depending on a number of factors.”
He sounded so unconcerned that she flinched. She reached over to grab his sleeve. “Lucas, how can you be so cold about that? You said yourself that those men are likely to be local villagers, perhaps even related to the people of your hall. Knowing so little about the situation, how can you even think to turn them over to be hanged or deported? I do not believe you are capable of such cruelty.”
He made an impatient, frustrated sound and shook off her hand. Standing, he turned to face her. He towered above her, over six feet of muscled, angry man. She had to resist the impulse to shrink into the pillows.
“It’s not cruelty. It’s command. This is my land, Phoebe, and my manor house. I didn’t ask for the earldom or the estate, not a goddamned bit of it. I never wanted the responsibility, but it’s mine now. And I’ll be hanged if I’ll let this place fall back into the wrack and ruin left by your grandfather. I will have order on my lands, and I’ll do whatever is necessary to achieve it.”
She peered up at him, unnerved and at a loss as to how to respond.
Unaware of the effect he was having on her—at least she hoped so—he carried on. Not shouting, but his hard voice chilled her nonetheless. “Furthermore, I expect my countess to support me on this, Quaker beliefs or no. This is the real world, Phoebe, and there are bad men in it, men who would kill you or anyone else on this estate if you got in their way. Yes, I know it troubles you, but I will not be held back from doing what I must by your quaint, childish notions about the world.”
The shock of his words hit her dead-on. She gasped and put her hands to her throat.
His eyes widened. “Christ. Phoebe, I didn’t mean—”
He bit off whatever he was going to say, leaning down to her. Shaking her head, she held up a hand to ward him off. “I may be naive, Lucas, but you still think like a man at war. You forget you are no longer a soldier.”
His gaze flickered away from her as he straightened up. “Sometimes I wish to hell I still was,” he said in a bitter voice.
Her heart broke. For him, for her, and for their marriage.
He drew in a deep breath, and with it came the hard shell of the arrogant aristocrat. “Are we through with this discussion now?” he asked in a coldly polite voice.
She managed to nod.
“Good. Then please move over so I can get back in bed.”
Phoebe had to push through disbelief and heartache to find her voice. “No, Lucas. I would ask that you return to your own room tonight.”
His hand, reaching for the coverlet, froze. Color washed across his cheekbones. “What?”
“You heard me,” she said, her voice firming. It might kill her to say the words, but she knew she had to. “I have no wish to sleep with you when you are filled with so much anger and hatred. Nor do I feel it my duty as your wife to do so. My responsibilities to God and my beliefs outweigh my marital obligations to you.”
His eyes seemed to flame at her, his expression stark. Then he turned on his heel and stalked from the room.
A clattering sound pulled her awake. Phoebe’s eyes flew open and she bolted upright, her heart thudding and her mind groping to remember where she was. Her gaze flitted from one corner of the room to the other, finally landing on Maggie pulling back the heavy drapes that hung over the window recesses of her bedroom.
Groaning, Phoebe fell back against the pillows. She hated that feeling, awakening in a panic in unfamiliar surroundings. Sometimes it felt more like a nightmare, swimming up from the depths with her heart pounding and her body trembling, trying to gain her bearings. She had experienced similar episodes on the ship’s crossing from America, although they had faded the last few weeks at Stanton House. But now they were back, and on her first morning in her new home. That was a very gloomy thought, as was the knowledge that she began her first full day as a married woman alone in bed.
“Good morning, my lady,” Maggie trilled in a voice so cheery it made Phoebe cringe. With a cheeky grin, the girl brought her a cup of tea, obviously no worse for wear after last night’s adventures in the hall. In contrast, Phoebe felt rather like the bottom of an old shoe.
“Here, my lady. His lordship said to let you sleep in, and then serve you breakfast in bed. He said you were all done up by them goings-on last night.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “Smugglers! Why, it’s a miracle none of us were murdered in our beds.”
“Yes. I believe you said much the same last night,” Phoebe replied in a dampening tone. She had no wish to revisit the dreary events of the previous evening. As far as she was concerned, the smugglers and the excise men could not have done a better job of ruining her wedding night if they had met in secret and planned the entire thing out.
Maggie eyed her uncertainly and then shrugged. Leaving Phoebe to her tea, she moved briskly about the room, straightening up clutter and restoring order. When she picked up Phoebe’s wrapper from the floor—where she had tossed it in a fit of frustration after Lucas stormed out of the room—Maggie stifled a giggle, obviously assuming it had landed there during a passionate encounter.
Nothing could be further from the truth, since Lucas had complied with her request to leave with depressing ease. She had half expected him to refuse, and part of her had hoped he would stay and have it out with her. But when he simply gave her that blazing look and turned on his heel, she had been stunned. It had taken her a few moments to recover, but then she had jumped out of bed to follow him. But with her hand poised on the handle of his door, she had realized how foolish she would appear, especially after her ultimatum.
Frustrated and discouraged, she had returned to bed, where she had proceeded to burst into tears and cry herself to sleep. Thank God Lucas had not returned to witness her acting like a silly schoolgirl. The evening had degenerated into enough of a farce without adding that humiliation on top of everything else.
She sighed and picked up a piece of toast, then put it down again.
“Is something the matter, my lady?” Maggie asked.
“Ah, no. I suppose I am just feeling a bit tired.”
“His lordship said you would be. He seemed quite concerned about it. Said I was to check on you if you slept past ten o’clock.”
“Ten o’clock!” Throwing back the covers, she shimmied down off the high mattress to the threadbare carpet. She grabbed her wrapper from the end of the bed, where Maggie had carefully placed it.
“Oh, it’s not to be wondered that you slept so late, my lady,” Maggie said, handing over her slippers with a little smirk. “After all, it was your wed
ding night.”
Phoebe scowled, knowing exactly what everyone thought of her late rising. If they only knew the truth.
“And his lordship is so handsome,” Maggie went on with a dreamy sort of sigh. “If he was my husband, I don’t think I’d let him out of bed for a week.”
Phoebe squeezed her eyelids shut, praying for patience. One day soon she would have to deal with Maggie’s loose tongue. But not today. She had enough problems to confront this morning, starting with her errant husband. “Has Lord Merritt already had his breakfast?”
“Yes, my lady. His lordship took his phaeton and went to Whitstable. He said not to expect him back until dinner.”
“Whitstable? Where is that?”
“It’s the nearest port. Mrs. Christmas said his lordship was going to talk to that excise officer, Mr. . . . Mr.—”
“Mr. Harper.”
Feeling deflated, Phoebe put on her slippers. Lucas had clearly decided that ridding his lands of smugglers took priority over spending the day with his new wife.
And how could she blame him, after her rejection? At the time, it had seemed very important to stand on principle. But in the cold light of day, she wondered if she had pushed him too far. After all, Lucas was an ex-soldier, used to order and discipline. The idea that lawbreakers could run rampant over the estate, even seeking refuge in the cellars of the house, would of course infuriate him. He would see it as an insult to his dignity as lord of the manor, something he could not tolerate.
Phoebe shook her head. Lucas had the nerve to call her quaint, but some of his ideas were positively medieval. Still, part of her understood. He was trying to feel his way through a new life and new responsibilities as much as she was. But while she had longed for change, Lucas resisted it. The estate, the manor, an entire village, and a household of dependents— he wanted none of it. It was no wonder he struggled to contain his resentment.
But wanted or not, those responsibilities now belonged to him. And to her. As his wife and countess she was duty-bound to assist him, helping him face and resolve the many challenges that he encountered.
His Mistletoe Bride Page 21