She half expected some snide comment like those that had greeted her in the ballroom. But he merely nodded politely, turned back to the paintings and sidestepped to a portrait of two children.
‘‘Excuse me, sir,’’ she called, ‘‘but did you see a lady enter just now? Dressed in lavender?’’
He shook his head. ‘‘I’ve quite had the room to myself,’’ he drawled in London’s most aristocratic West End accent.
Puzzled, she was about to retreat when a wall came up against her back and an arm snaked round her middle. Grayson’s breath fell heavy against her neck.
‘‘What the devil was that cat-and-mouse chase all about?’’
Before she could answer, his arm fell away. His torso stiffened rocklike against her.
‘‘Waterston.’’
Grayson moved her aside, not rough but insistent. Features rigid with steely accord, he took the room in four great strides. He raised an arm, formed a fist.
The man in tweed cried out. His head snapped backward and he staggered against the force of the blow. Hitting the wall behind him, he sagged to the floor, slumping into a heap of arms and legs. Blood trickled from his lip. Above him, the portrait of the two children tilted drunkenly.
Nora too felt suddenly drunk, dizzy, thrust into a nightmare. Grayson advanced on the man, fist taking fresh aim.
Roused from bewilderment, she caught his arm in both hands, forestalling the blow by putting all her strength into holding him still.
‘‘What are you doing? Good heavens, you hurt that man. Grayson . . . Gray . . . look at me!’’
His head turned. He gazed past her, through her. His eyes were chilling and vacant. She called his name again. His eyes shifted to her. Focused and thawed.
‘‘Nora . . .’’
‘‘What have you done?’’
Beneath her hands, the stubborn rage drained from his muscles. His fist uncurled.
Voices flooded in from the hall. A surge of people spilled through the door. There were shuffling feet, cries of dismay. A woman shrieked. Startled observations flew.
‘‘Good gracious, it’s those two.’’
‘‘Yes, and he’s in one of his murderous rages. . . .’’ A masculine voice announced to no one in particular that a guard must be summoned.
Ignoring them all, Grayson glared down at the bleeding, cowering man. ‘‘The next time you choose to spew lies, perhaps you’ll consider the consequences.’’
With that he pivoted and caught Nora’s hand. As if only just registering the presence of their audience, he hesitated and drew a breath through his teeth. ‘‘I suggest someone get him to a physician.’’
He started walking, pulling Nora past the appalled stares.
‘‘But that gentleman . . .’’
‘‘Is lucky I don’t call him out.’’
But for the shocked, accusatory looks, they were not challenged as they made their way downstairs. Through a blur of confusion she was tugged along, her hand aching in the bluntness of his grip.
Such anger. Even now her mind couldn’t fathom what he’d done or why. The look on his face, the glacial blaze in his eyes . . . If Papa had seen his eyes today, would he still maintain that Grayson’s eyes were clear of guilt?
Remembered snippets of gossip mocked her with each hurried step toward the street. They say he flew into a rage and strangled his brother, then threw his body over the cliff.
As they stepped out into the gray glare of the overcast sky, other words added their taunt: to learn more about him, persuade Grayson to take you to the NationalGallery.
Was this her intended lesson? That her initial fears about marrying Grayson Lowell were not entirely unfounded?
Chapter 9
"Don’t you think it’s time we talked?"
It was Nora’s implacable stance—chin up, arms crossed, feet planted wide—and not her question that forced Grayson’s eyes from the book he hadn’t been reading.
‘‘You didn’t say a word on the ride home,’’ she persisted.
No, after his temporary loss of sanity at the gallery there had been only silence and bleeding knuckles, Nora’s pinched features and her unasked questions.
Odd, but there was no sign of that pinched look now. A new look had entered her eyes, one of conviction. Steadiness. Trusting certainty.
On second thought, it wasn’t new, that look, for he’d seen it before. Last night, after making love for the first time. Or perhaps the second. She’d had that steady look in her eyes when she told him she believed in him.
The stubborn angle of her chin now declared the unlikelihood of his postponing this confrontation a moment longer.
Reluctantly he closed the unread book in his lap, placed there merely to prevent any staff entering the library from disturbing him. ‘‘I thought if you wished to speak of it in the coach you would have said something.’’
‘‘I’m not the one who cuffed a man without apparent reason. What happened today?’’
He clenched his jaw until it ached. What could he tell her? He had no words of reassurance, only confirmation of what she’d seen with her own eyes: a man with a tenuous grip on his temper, at times his sanity, likely to lose that hold with the slightest provocation.
He had thought—hoped—that here in London, away from the memories, he might manage an acceptable level of civility.
Damn you, Thomas, how could you have been such a sodding idiot? You’ve lost everything, let us all down. What of your son? What will Jonny inherit? How could you have been so bloody irresponsible?
He shook the memory away, wishing for the thousandth time he could go back and change things, be a better man, a better brother. Understand and forgive and help find a solution. . . .
An unutterable weariness stole over him. ‘‘Must we discuss this now?’’
Even as he spoke she came closer, slid onto his lap and slipped an arm about his shoulders.
‘‘Indeed, we must.’’ Her warm scent engulfed him. Her lips and those tilting cat’s eyes snared him with their power to captivate. The soft swell of her bottom against his thighs threatened to end any conversation they might have before it ever started.
She placed her other hand against his cheek. ‘‘Now that I have your complete attention . . . that man you hit, you called him Waterston. The name is familiar to me.’’
His pulse spiked while his earlier madness pinched, jabbed, murmured insidious suggestions. ‘‘How do you know him?’’
It was all he could do to wait patiently for her answer, to not grab her shoulders and shake the truth out of her.
‘‘I do not know him,’’ she replied calmly. ‘‘But I remember you mentioning his name to me last night.’’
The madness receded into swirling relief. Of course she didn’t know Waterston. The man was a liar, just like the rest of London.
‘‘I recall it quite distinctly,’’ she went on, while the throbbing in his wrists and temples settled to dull spasms. ‘‘You said, ‘Waterston never told me of this.’ Told you of what? I assume it has some connection to me.’’
His head tipped back against the chair. He’d blurted the stupid admission last night while still under delusions concerning her character, before he’d realized the injustice and plain wrongness of the rumors.
‘‘It was nothing,’’ he said dully. ‘‘Forget it.’’
‘‘It was indeed something. And I have a theory.’’ Obviously not about to take his advice, she grasped his chin and pulled his head down, forcing him to meet her gaze.
‘‘At the gallery you told me to ignore the insults. You called those people slanderous idiots and pulled me away before I could reduce myself to their level. Yet you attacked a man who’d neither said nor done anything objectionable.’’
Leave it alone, he thought, but aloud he said, ‘‘And your theory is?’’
‘‘That he has, within your hearing, insulted me.
Unforgivably.’’
Dear God, she was good at reading h
im. Too good. Soon enough she’d see the whole truth and know him for the man he was.
He gazed out a window in want of cleaning into a sky turned leaden. He wished for a downpour, a deluge to wash away the past. Wished to be free to devote his heart and every waking moment to this ingenuous beauty who didn’t have the good sense to be afraid of anything in this life, least of all him. Part of him considered warning her not to be so reckless.
‘‘Am I right?’’ she demanded.
‘‘Let it go.’’
She leaned in and kissed him on the mouth, nudging his passion, yes, but more. Claiming him. Demanding he recognize her claim. Insisting he pay her heed. She pulled back and shot him a shrewd look. ‘‘I believe you were protecting me.’’
He wished he could say it were so. True, he’d attacked Waterston because of his lies about her. But in the instant of contact, even in the impetus that drove him across that room, there had only been fury. No thoughts for her, none for honor. Only the blind, black need to strike.
She lifted his guilty hand from the arm of the chair. Holding it in her warm palm, she used a fingertip to trace the two knuckles rubbed raw from the punch. ‘‘He told you he’d seen my portrait. Yes?’’
He admitted as much with a twitch of his brow. She brought his hand to her mouth, her pretty lips puckering just beside the wounded skin. Then she turned his hand over and pressed kisses to his palm, working her way to the tip of his forefinger and sending streaks of heat through him. His arousal throbbed beneath the soft weight of her thigh.
‘‘I don’t think you’d have hit him for that alone.’’ She suckled his middle finger. His heartbeat raced, but whether from wanting to toss her on the nearby settee or from fear of her nipping too close to the truth, he couldn’t say. He watched her silently as she continued her sensual interrogation.
Her lips nibbled at his ring finger. ‘‘Perhaps he said he’d been with me. . . . He wouldn’t be the first to make the claim.’’
He pulled his hand free. He couldn’t stand it— couldn’t endure that gleam of certainty wrapped around an eagerness to excuse his abominable behavior.
‘‘You think you know me after a single day of marriage?’’
‘‘I’m trying to.’’ Her voice faltered. She lifted her chin.
He turned his face away. She hadn’t begun to scratch the surface of what he was. He dreaded the day she burrowed deeper.
‘‘Well?’’
He expelled a breath. ‘‘Well what?’’
‘‘Aren’t I right about this Waterston fellow, darling?’’
The endearment sliced at his conscience. He shut his eyes. He didn’t deserve her. Nor did she deserve him. No, she deserved a young man whose greatest sin lay in occasionally imbibing too much brandy and wagering too high at cards.
He felt her hand, cool and petal soft, against his cheek. But upon opening his eyes he saw she hadn’t moved. Both her hands lay in her lap.
Go home, Gray. . . . Go home . . .
Holding Nora at the waist, he shot to his feet, lifting her so suddenly that she gave a startled cry.
He released her and darted a gaze about the room. ‘‘Did you hear that?’’
‘‘Hear what?’’ She looked baffled, hurt.
Had he heard anything? Or merely his own inner voice acknowledging it was time to face his fears? He spoke to the wall behind her. ‘‘Go and pack your things.’’
She hesitated, then asked, ‘‘Where are we going?’’
Where are you going, he wanted to amend. Should have amended. Home, where you belong, where you’ll always be safe. But the fool inside him, the one who had just that afternoon attested to her being his one gleaming, glorious hope, simply couldn’t let her go. Not even to save her.
‘‘It’s no good here,’’ he said in a lame attempt to explain. ‘‘I thought perhaps we might prevail over the gossip, but I was wrong. It isn’t fair to you. You shouldn’t have to hear . . . shouldn’t have to endure the taunts.’’
‘‘All right.’’ She stood before him calmly, head tilted, eyebrows a little raised. Her very posture declared she wasn’t nearly taking him at face value, that she knew quite well there was more to this story but had decided to humor him for now. ‘‘Where are we going, then?’’
‘‘To Blackheath Grange.’’
He is running, trying to, dragging his feet through sucking mud and the sodden weeds tangling around his ankles. Thistles snare his clothing, tear it ragged. He pushes on, mouth gaping and lungs shrieking for air. Up ahead he sees Tom, beyond his reach, running swifter than Grayson can manage.
Closer and closer to the sea they race. Where is Tom going? Grayson shouts to him, but Tom doesn’t answer,doesn’t pause. As Grayson gathers breath to try again, the words sear his throat but go no farther.
In dread he watches his brother reach the headland. Panic grips him as Tom leans out over the cliff as if daring the sea to reach up and seize him.
Tom, no!
Grayson must reach him, must tell his brother how sorry he is. That everything will be all right.
A burst of wind heaves a mighty push, and Grayson finds himself on the headland too. Mere inches from Tom he grinds to a halt, nearly colliding and sending them both over the ledge. Slowly Tom turns, his featurestight, pained, his eyes beseeching. Words of conciliationform in Grayson’s mind.
Aghast, he hears other words torn from his lips by the wind: your damned stupidity . . . we’re ruined . . . all your fault . . .
Helpless, Grayson watches his own hands encircle Tom’s neck. Horror sends bile to his throat as his grip tightens, controlled not by him but by a murderous demon that possesses him. Back and forth he shakes his brother while he watches Tom’s face darken from red to purple, his eyes bulge grotesquely. Only in some detached part of his brain does Grayson register the fact that Tom offers no resistance. . . . As if he too believes he deserves to die . . .
Grayson snatches his hands away. ‘‘Oh, God. My God, Tom, forgive me. I’m so sor—’’
Before the last word forms, the soggy ground gives way with a sickening lurch that drags Tom with it. Frantically Grayson grapples with thin air as Tom, still gazing at him, slides backward over the cliff and down, down to the jagged rocks below. . . .
A scream yanked Nora from sleep. No, not a scream but many, blending into one long wail of terror. She bolted upright, then realized where she was—a coaching inn in Devon, just east of the Tamar River. She’d had a bad dream. . . . But no, those awful moans continued echoing through the room.
Beneath her, the mattress quaked. Reaching in the darkness, her hand collided with Grayson’s flailing arm. She grasped it, then threw herself across his body to still his thrashing.
‘‘Gray, wake up! It’s all right. You’re having a nightmare.’’ She cupped his face in her palms and felt the perspiration pouring off him in rivulets. ‘‘Darling, it’s all right. Please wake up.’’
In the scant moonlight she saw a vein in his temple throbbing, his lips stretched taut across his teeth. His eyelids fluttered. The thrashing subsided and gradually his moans quieted.
His eyes opened. ‘‘I—what—Nora?’’
‘‘Yes, I’m here. It’s all right. You were having a nightmare.’’
He shoved out a shaky sigh and threw an arm across his eyes. ‘‘Good God. It was . . . hideous.’’
‘‘Do you want to tell me about it?’’
She felt him go completely still. ‘‘No.’’
She wished he would, thought he needed to. But in his present state, she didn’t insist. ‘‘Well, it’s over now. Can you sleep?’’
He hesitated. ‘‘No.’’
‘‘Perhaps I could make you some tea.’’
She started to sit up, but his hand shot out and clamped her wrist.
‘‘Stay here. Please.’’ He pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing like a frightened child. ‘‘Don’t leave me.’’
‘‘Of course I won’t.’’
His trembling echoed inside her. She was about to say more to comfort him when suddenly he rolled, flipping her onto her back. His weight pinned her to the mattress and his mouth covered hers with a hunger that took her aback.
His hands roved insistently, purposefully, so much less gentle than previously. Within seconds her nightgown was stripped away. His mouth dragged across her breasts, and she gasped with shock and pleasure both as his teeth closed around a nipple, as his hand shoved her thighs apart.
A single-minded haste unlike she’d experienced with him before accompanied each action. Desperation emanated from the tension of his muscles and the force with which he held her fast.
‘‘You’re frightening me a little.’’
‘‘Perhaps you should be.’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘Just love me tonight, Nora. Let go and don’t think. Forget who I am—who we are. Forget everything. Just love me. For tonight.’’
‘‘You know I will. Always.’’
Grayson took her pledge into his open mouth as if starved, but for sustenance far different than food. His tongue besieged the interior of her mouth even as his erection pushed through folds of flesh gone torrid with an intensity of desire she’d not yet experienced or imagined.
Yes, it frightened her, for it reminded her of the violence she’d witnessed in him so recently, and of her growing fear of what crouched inside the gentle man she’d married.
Yet it thrilled her too, darkly, dangerously. As his body moved inside her, as he pinned her with his pale, fierce eyes, she fought past her doubts and let go, freed her mind of all constraints as he’d bade her do.
His thrusts were like a gathering storm, building to a raging tempest. She wrapped herself around him and clung, urging him deeper. Harder. She wanted this brusque, indecorous lovemaking, discovered she needed it perhaps as much as he. She relished the intimacy that broke all barriers of civility and left nothing concealed.
Yet as her cries were muffled by his greedy lips, and as he echoed those cries moments later with a staggering surge of his body, the fierceness of his passion crashed through her—jarring, volatile, violent. A passion a thousand times more shattering than she had ever bargained for.
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