Melissa and The Vicar (The Seducers Book 1)

by S. M. LaViolette

  The other man had turned away from Melissa’s door, which he’d apparently been about to open.

  “Don’t go in there.” He’d closed the distance between them. “And never lay a hand on her again.”

  The man—some manner of whore, Magnus assumed—merely laughed. “The only one who gives orders about Mel is Mel.”

  “And now her husband.” He’d turned and left, more pleased than he should have been by the man’s expression of utter shock.

  But his amusement had worn away the longer he contemplated what he’d said, how he’d behaved, whom he’d become in that room. Magnus abhorred violence of all kinds, and the things he’d said to her—the coercion he’d used to force her to live up to a vow she’d obviously never meant seriously—left him disgusted with himself and horrified.

  He knew the cause of his beastly behavior was seeing her with that man. It had made him want to flex—to demonstrate that he had some power. She had prodded him with a flyswatter and he had responded with a twenty-pound mallet.

  But it was too late for regrets. They were here, at the home where he’d run and played with his brothers as a child; the place where he’d dressed in ridiculous finery for his first trip to Carlton House with his father; the place where he’d held his grandmother’s hand as she died—the same night he told his parents he was entering the clergy.

  He and his new wife sat in the smaller of the two dining rooms surrounded by an impressive array of food. They’d come directly from the tiny church, where only Thomas and his wife had been their witnesses. His interaction with his friend had been, naturally, somewhat stilted. He supposed it would have been natural to invite the couple to celebrate with them, but he could hardly let his friend see them in their current state of armed neutrality—well, at least on her part. For his? He had exhausted his anger—his jealousy—and now he wanted to begin their married life on the right footing.

  But of course he was not the one who had been threatened and coerced into this marriage. He looked across the food, most of it untouched, to where she sat.

  “Melissa?”

  She looked up from the plate he’d served her and saw she had eaten none of it.

  “Won’t you eat something?”

  “Will you threaten and force me if I don’t?”

  He flushed. “I should apologize for my earlier, er, bombast.”

  “An apology costs you nothing now, does it? And it is worth just as much to me.”

  “I deserve that,” he conceded. If he’d hoped his mild words would appease her, he’d been dead wrong.

  She flung up her hands. “Oh, all is well, then. So.” She shoved away her plate and cutlery with a noisy clatter and then propped her elbows on the table and leaned toward him in a distinctly unladylike pose. She was wearing a gown he’d never seen before; a gown cut so her breasts, which he knew were lovely, were displayed more prominently than he’d seen before. It was not gaudy or unsuitable, merely nothing like the proper pastel muslins she’d worn in New Bickford. It was a deep rose color that flattered her skin and hair and made her appear positively edible. Magnus blinked at the sudden thought; he’d do well to put such amorous images from his mind for the foreseeable future. Perhaps for the remainder of his married life.

  He realized he was staring at her chest and glanced up. Her expression was mocking—unpleasantly so.

  “So,” she repeated, “now that you’ve taken me from my home with all the finesse of a Viking dragging a woman by her hair, what do you intend to do with The White House?”

  Magnus didn’t believe he’d heard her correctly. “I’m sorry?”

  “It is yours now, isn’t it? As well as my person, of course.”

  He realized that he’d begun to tense, to breathe faster, to become angry at her hostile, accusatory, mean tone. And then he realized he had no right to that anger. Everything she said was true: her person and her possessions now belonged to him under the law.

  “I want nothing from your business. But neither will I permit you to continue profiting from it.” He watched as she became redder but ploughed forward. “I’m inclined to ask that you close it immediately, but I’ll give you a month to contact your man of business and end things.”

  She lunged to her feet, swatting violently at the wine glass that sat untouched and sending it whizzing past Magnus’s shoulder and shattering against the black-and-white marble floor.

  “Are you trying to make me hate you? Because you needn’t bother—I already do.”

  Magnus pushed back his chair and went to her. Spirals of auburn hair, which he knew possessed a beautiful curl when unbound, escaped from the stern chignon she favored, floated around her angry face; her eyes were like the phosphorescence he’d occasionally seen in the water off New Bickford Head.

  “Melissa.” He raised his hands to touch her but then froze when she flinched away from him. “Please,” he said, lowering his arms to his sides. “I deeply regret the words I spoke in anger to bring you to this point. You will never know how much I grieve them. But we are man and wife, now. We will be with one another as long as we live—don’t you think it behooves us to make the best of our situation? After all—” He couldn’t help himself and reached for the gentle curve of her jaw; this time she let him. “After all,” he repeated, his body throbbing at the mere touch, “I do love you, and I believe you care for me—or at least you did before today. Perhaps . . .”

  He broke off when she leaned toward him, her eyes heavy, her lips parted, tilting her face up to be kissed. Magnus obliged her, their lips barely meeting, but enough to bring him to complete arousal. She kissed him teasingly, her nibbling reminiscent of that night, of the loving they had shared. “I did say I loved you, Magnus,” she whispered, her words thrilling him, “but I only said that to get what I wanted. You know how that is, darling, but I apologize now for what I said to you then.”

  He stiffened, and not in a pleasurable way.

  She pulled away and smiled up at him, one eyebrow cocked in amusement, the sultry look in her eyes nowhere in sight, her expression that of a pugilist spoiling for a fight. “I didn’t really mean it,” she said, just in case he’d missed her point.

  Magnus suppressed the flare of hurt and anger he felt at her words. Instead, he nodded. “Very well, I will accept you lied when you said you loved me. Will you be seated?” He had the satisfaction—slim—of seeing her eyes widen in surprise at his cool acceptance of her cruel words.

  She dropped gracelessly into her chair, her expression wary and uncertain. Magnus gave the bell pull a tug.

  When the Dawks arrived, he gestured to the broken glass. “Would you please have someone clean up the mess and bring a new glass for my wife? I’m afraid I was rather clumsy with this one.”

  ∞∞∞

  Melissa glared at him from across the confines of the post chaise. It was the second day of traveling. She’d not spoken a word to him since dinner on their wedding day. She smirked at the word wedding. Her husband was reading, his expression fixed enough for her to believe he was not merely acting. No, he’d read for an entire day yesterday. And then last night, when they’d stopped at an inn and he’d procured chambers for them: two separate chambers.

  He’d ordered her a meal for the private parlor—not consulting her, of course—high-handed behavior she was beginning to realize he must have possessed all along, but had merely kept hidden—and then he bid her good night and took his own meal in the public dining room.

  She’d been furious. It had been her plan to ask him to let her have her evening meal in peace because she wanted to see that hurt, pained expression that he’d shown her the day he’d begged for her hand. Instead, he showed her nothing but courtesy, kindness, and polite concern. He was a perfect husband.

  And she? Well, she was as sharp-tongued as the proverbial fishwife, everything she said sarcastic, or veiled, or just outright rude. And he never rose to the bait.

  But beneath her anger was no small amount of worry and shame. She h
ad lied to him about her real name—lied to the Archbishop of Bloody Canterbury—and she’d concealed her growing suspicion that she was likely pregnant.

  He had bullied and threatened and she’d done what she did best, well, second best—she’d lied.

  You lied because he forced you to lie! her furious inner voice said, the truth of the statement stirring the embers of her anger but not enough to burn away her guilt at what she’d done.

  Even so, her shame wasn’t strong enough to make her forgive him. She knew it was childish, but her desire to bait and draw a rise out of him increased with each hour they spent together. Just what did it take to ruffle his hateful placidity and composure? Two days ago she’d found the answer to that question: Hugo. Yes, Hugo had gotten through Magnus’s veneer of kindness and civility.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t pull Hugo out of her valise to taunt him with, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t introduce his apparition.

  So last night, in her room all alone, she’d written Hugo a letter, addressing it to him in a bold hand and giving it to her husband when he’d come to lead her downstairs this morning.

  “Will you see this is posted for me, darling.”

  His pupils flared at her affectionate tone and his answering smile was instant. And then he’d looked down at the letter in his hand. His beautiful lips tightened but he still managed one of the smiles she now thought of as his curate mask. “It would be my pleasure.”

  And those were the last words they’d exchanged since they’d entered the carriage this morning.

  He looked up, as if aware of her brooding stare, and smiled at her. “Are you comfortable, my dear?”

  He asked questions like this at least every few hours; she ignored each and every one of them. At first, she’d believed it was for the sake of the servants, or just to batter her with his vapid courtesy. But she’d begun to realize he was genuinely concerned for her comfort. Which only annoyed her more.

  She ignored his question yet again and turned to look out the window. Not much to see: it was gray, rainy, and the wind howled.

  “I’m afraid you won’t be seeing Bodmin Moor at its best,” he said, apparently not caring whether he spoke to her or a blank wall. “But there is a certain bleak beauty that one can enjoy at any time of year.”

  She studied her cuticles as if there was no more interesting sight in the world.

  “You are probably wondering how it is that I have a cottage in such a remote area?”

  Mel moved to her other hand.

  “It belonged to an aunt on my father’s side. She was rather a rebel who refused to marry and spent her time on the Continent, until the War drove her back home. She spent her last years here and I often came to visit her when I was in school.”

  Mel sighed.

  “She died three years ago.”

  She looked up at the pain in his voice, but his expression was bland and contemplative.

  “I suppose I should tell you a bit about my family. We are relative newcomers to the aristocratic table. My great-grandfather was a shipbuilder in Liverpool during the wars of the last century.” He paused, his tone musing. “Although it is difficult to see where one war begins and another ends.” He shrugged, the movement of his broad shoulders elegant even in his poorly fitted blacks, which he’d reverted to the morning they left London. It annoyed her that she even noticed his bloody shoulders or what he wore.

  “Great-grandfather William Stanwyck made two of the ships in the squadron that destroyed the Spanish fleet in Vigo Bay. King George—our current king’s grandfather, rewarded him with a barony: William, 1st Baron Stanwyck. Naturally my great-grandfather immediately packed his bag, removed himself to the small town of Branford where the King’s generous grant of land awaited him, and commenced laying flagstones for the baronial manor almost the moment he leapt from the carriage.”

  Mel realized she was smiling and put a stop to it.

  “He soon had a hall to go with his title, but no wife and no son to carry on. He married Lady Anne Portnay, the thirteenth child, and seventh daughter, of the 5th Earl of Sheringham. It wasn’t a mere step up the social ladder for William, it was a prodigious leap. His son, the 2nd Baron and my own grandfather, was not so well placed—in spite of his maternal connections—that he could ignore the family business. He, too, provided the accouterments every monarch needs to wage a successful naval campaign. He was rewarded with an earldom and marquisate in quick succession, but neither of these titles came with land. Not bothered by that oversight, James, my granddad, immediately began expansion on his baronial hall, a project which kept him busy and happy as he and my grandmother—the daughter of a baron—were fruitful and multiplied.” He paused and glanced at her, catching her openly listening. She yawned and opened the book that sat beside her on the seat. He didn’t laugh, but she could feel his amusement.

  “Which brings us to my own father. Ships were a distant memory when my father, David, appeared on the scene. He was born the third son out of five and survived all but one of them.” The humor had drained from his voice. “My father, his elder brother, and two of his sisters also survived the smallpox epidemic, but all four siblings were scarred.

  Mel put down the book.

  “My father grew a beard to cover the disfiguring scars but his brother—the eldest but one—had been left both scarred and blind and took his own life. One aunt still lives at Stanwyck Hall and has never married. The other is the one I mentioned earlier—Aunt Eudora. Although she never said so, I believe she avoided marriage because of her scarring. She was also a very . . . how should I put this? Aunt Eudora simply did not accept her role as a spinster aunt who stayed at her married brother’s house and knitted stockings. She was a free spirit; I suppose is the best way to describe her. It is from my aunt that I learned to follow my heart and join the clergy rather than embrace a future as a gentleman farmer.”

  This time, when he caught her looking, she did not yawn or look away. He held her gaze for a long moment and then continued, turning to gaze out the window.

  “My mother was the youngest daughter of the Duke of Southmorland. She was, what the ton so vulgarly phrases, a diamond of the first water. My parents’ marriage was a love-match. My father says it was love at first sight—he fell in love with her when she didn’t run away at the first sight of him.”

  Mel smiled; how could she not?

  “My brother Cecil, who is Earl of Sydell, lives at home. He is horse and hunting mad and you will never see him without a pack of hounds at his heels. Michael, the eldest but one, has his own very pretty property only an hour away. He is engaged to be married to his childhood sweetheart, our nearest neighbor’s daughter—an unholy terror who tormented all the boys in the neighborhood growing up.” He grinned at her. “I believe you will like Molly when you meet her.”

  Mel could only stare. Didn’t he know what he was saying? She was a whore and an infamous one, at that. And he thought he could merely stroll into his family house and introduce her to the daughters of dukes, earls, viscounts? It was at times like this that she found it difficult not to scream at him like a shrew—how could he be so bloody naïve?

  “The next in line is Henry, who is with his regiment on the Continent. After him is James, who is with the Duke of Wellington’s diplomatic core, and then there is Philip who lives on one of my father’s estates up in Scotland.” He gave her the same sweet smile that had unraveled her in New Bickford, but which she now knew was a façade for a man who did not shy from ruthless behavior to get his own way. “And then there is me.”

  “Their baby and favorite,” she said.

  He did not deny it.

  “The one who has married a whore.”

  “Enough!” he bellowed.

  Melissa almost jumped out of her skin, and even the carriage seemed to shudder.

  She could see, by his wide eyes and flaring nostrils, that he had stunned even himself. She was beginning to suspect his temper was triggered by specific things—an
d when it happened . . . well . . .

  “I won’t tolerate that word. If you have no respect for yourself, at least have some for me.”

  “What,” she jeered, sounding nothing but spiteful even though her heart was hammering in her chest, “you prefer another word? Prostitute? Harlot?” she hesitated and then, “slut.”

  He stared at her through pupils that had shrunk to pinpricks, his irises a chilling, frosty blue. “That will be the last time you speak those three words, either.”

  “You are very fond of giving orders, my lord.”

  “I am your husband, Melissa.”

  “And that is a husband’s job, to issue orders?”

  His jaw worked from side to side. Who would ever have guessed this stern, commanding man inhabited the same body as the other Magnus—the caring, loving, laughing man who’d entranced every female in his vicinity with his gentle sweetness? Of course, she’d been goading him for days. Most other men would probably have beaten her by now.

  He looked away, gazing out the window. His profile was achingly beautiful. Her husband was a magnificent man. If her life had been different—if she’d not spent the last fifteen years as a whore—marriage to Magnus would have been her greatest dream.

  But this? He’d behaved rashly, spurred by jealousy at the sight of her stupid games with Hugo. And he’d taken a step he would live to regret. Deeply, and sooner rather than later. And when that happened? When they found themselves sitting at a table with a man she’d spread her thighs for—which would happen, it was only a question of how soon—he would start to hate her.

  And that would be the best outcome.

  The worst possibility was that he would challenge some man who dishonored her—or him rather—with a throwaway comment about something she’d done that would most likely be true. Which would only make him angrier and hate her more.

  Likely he would meet said man on a foggy morning with pistols. That encounter would either end with his death or banishment from England. Banishment would be just the same at that point because he would be ejected from the Church faster than a bullet from a pistol when they learned about his marriage. They might not be so kind as to discharge him. No, they would probably make his existence a living hell, until he finally did the dirty work for them and quit.