“And do what? Sleep with whomever you wish? Take a number of lovers?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I enjoyed our lovemaking. It taught me that a woman has needs the same as a man. A woman desires to be kissed and loved.”
“Stop.”
“She needs to feel the pleasure that a man can give her.”
“I said stop, damn you!” he gripped her arms and dragged her against him. “I don’t believe this! Are you telling me that after I am gone you intend to take a lover?”
“Of course! What did you think I meant?”
“What did I think, what did I think!” he bellowed. “I thought that you would have our marriage annulled, then you would live with your brother until you found a good and proper husband who would treat you with respect.”
“I have a good husband, William. I am perfectly satisfied with the man I have married. The fact that he doesn’t want me. . .”
“You know that is bloody not true! I’m hard as a stone right now! Christ, if I had my way, I’d rip the clothes from your body, I’d drag you over to that bed, spread your legs, and bury myself within you. I’d take you hard for the rest of the night and every night until I had my fill. I’d make damn sure I satisfied those damn needs you were discussing so freely. You wouldn’t have to worry about another man in your bed, and if you took a lover, I’d vow to shoot the two of you!”
She stared at him with astonishment for several moments, her cheeks flushed. If she had meant to shock him, he had neatly turned the tables. He wasn’t a proper gentleman anymore and he wanted her to know it.
She licked her lips. “Kiss me William. I want to do those things you said.”
William groaned. The woman was killing him! “Can’t you understand, I am doing you a favor. If we make love, you might end up with a child. I don’t know how to be a husband, much less a father. As my father’s heir I was expected to do it, but things have changed since then. I am not the man I once was and I never will be again.”
She shook her head. “You don’t see yourself the way I do. You would make a wonderful husband William.”
“If I told you all the things I have done, if I could let you see the man I really am, then you would understand.”
Her hand found his cheek. “Tell me. Tell me what has happened to you to make you feel this way.”
William swallowed hard. Dark images began to appear, sobs of pain, screams of agony, cries for help. He fought against them, trying to block them out. “I can’t.” He turned his head away, missing the gentle touch as soon as it was gone. “Don’t ask me again, Katherine. Not ever.”
She looked at him, feeling tears come to her eyes. They were for him, he realized, not for herself. Something tightened within him. She was standing there holding up her gown, looking at him with desire and pity, and it was ripping him in two.
“Make love to me William. Let me help you forget.”
Ignoring the increasing pressure in his chest and the look on Katherine’s face, he stepped away, desperate to put some distance between the two of them. “Get dressed,” he commanded. “In case it has slipped your mind, you are standing there half naked. You’re acting like a whore and it does not become you.” That wasn’t the truth. She was desirable and beautiful and he wanted to make love to her. He wanted her in his bed and not just for tonight.
Tears welled up in Katherine’s eyes and her bottom lip trembled as she turned and walked away. He told himself to leave her, not to torture himself by listening to the rustle of fabric, not to allow the image of her smooth bare skin to invade the corners of his mind.
She finally emerged from behind her dressing screen in a simple white night gown that was every bit as enticing as her gown. She looked small and fragile an embarrassed as he had never seen her before. He had done that to her.
He told himself to leave, that it was better to put an end to the fierce attraction between them. Instead his legs began to move, he walked across the room in her direction. He knelt beside the bed, reached for her small hand, and pressed the back against his lips.
“If we had a marriage in truth,” he said, “I would cherish your passion, your desire. It is a rare and beautiful quality in a woman, one any wise husband would treasure.”
She turned her head so that she could see him, her hair spilling across the pillow. Some of the color returned to her cheeks. “I am your wife. You are my husband.”
He shook his head. “I am not your husband, Katherine. I will never be your husband. Once I was your lover, but I was also a fool.”
Turning before she could say anything more, something that might convince him to stay, William crossed the room and opened the door to his bedchamber. He’d be glad when this whole affair ended.
John Stanton paused, descending the wide marble stairs. His mansion was in the finest area of London. It had been his grandfather’s lavish gift to the woman he married. It was John’s home now, his place of solace, of refuge, though at the moment it sounded as if it were being invaded.
“Please, I must see the earl.” A small cloaked figure stood inside the doorway. “I know I haven’t an appointment, please, tell him I am here.”
“I’m sorry, Madam. Lord Stanton is extremely determined when it comes to his privacy. Perhaps if you will give me your name.”
The visitor made a noise of despair that sounded close to a sob. “Tell him it is Elizabeth. I believe the earl will come if you tell him Elizabeth is here.”
John’s heart quickened. He rapidly descended the last of the stairs and stepped into the marble-floored foyer.
“It’s all right. Elizabeth is a friend. She is welcome here. I’ll speak to her in the drawing room.”
She stared at him, her face well-hidden by the hood. “John,” she whispered hysteria in her voice, “please you must help me. I am so frightened. I don’t know what to do.” It was the first time she had ever used his first name and it told him how near to panic she was.
“It’s all right.” A knot of worry balled up in his stomach. Resting a hand on her wrist, he guided her into the drawing room. “Once you tell me what has upset you so badly I’m certain we’ll be able to straighten things out.”
He took her cloak and tossed it over a chair, then seated her on a gold-fringed sofa.
Elizabeth gripped her hands in her lap. They looked slender and pale, and he noticed that they were trembling.
“I know this is a terrible imposition, but I had to come. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Where is your father?” he asked, knowing they had always been close.
Her eyes clouded with tears. “My father is dead.”
John’s jaw went tense. “I’m sorry Elizabeth.” he squeezed her hand. “Sit here a moment. I’ll be right back.” Moving to the sideboard, he poured her a small glass of sherry, then returned to the sofa. “Drink this.” He pressed the stemmed crystal into her trembling hand. “Just a sip or two will make you feel better.” When she accepted the glass, he sat down on the sofa beside her.
The glass shook in her trembling hands. She took a sip and set it on the table. “I miss him, already I miss him so much.”
“Elizabeth, how did it happen?”
“There was an accident, the carriage veered off the road and went into a pond. My father drowned.” Tear-filled eyes lifted to his face. “He did it. I know he did. Somehow Benjamin killed my father.”
Stunned silence overcame him. An icy shiver ran down his spine. “Elizabeth, surely you’re mistaken. The news of your father’s death has come as a terrible shock. It is understandable that you are upset. Surely the duke would not. . .”
Her fingers bit into his arm. “You don’t know him as I do. You don’t know how ruthless, how cruel he can be. I think my father had begun to see. I think he had started to worry he had made a mistake in choosing Benjamin.”
John’s head sprung up, the words gripping him even more fiercely than her unexpected accusations. “Your father was the one? You did not wish t
o marry Benjamin?”
Pain washed over her face. Her eyes slid closed and a flood of tears washed down her cheeks. “I wanted to please him. He was an old man and I wanted to make him happy.” She leaned toward John, her anguished gazed fixed on his face. “I would have married you, my lord. I was in love with you.”
“Elizabeth. . .” he took her gently in his arms, whispered soft words of comfort, and let her weep against his shoulder. He held her and his heart filled with pain, for himself and for Elizabeth.
“The night of the Chastain’s party,” she started, “he tricked me into leaving. He took me to an inn. I thought my father was there, but it wasn’t the truth.” A wrenching sob slipped out. “Benjamin tore off my clothes. He did things, terrible things. It was so awful, so horribly vile.” She shook her head as more tears rolled down her cheeks. “I always imagined that it would be beautiful.”
Anger overcame him, and a fierce jolt of regret. It would have been, John thought, if he had been the man making love to the gentle Elizabeth.
She drew away from him then, pulled back to look him in the face. “I can’t stay there a moment more, my lord. I can’t face him knowing what he has done.”
“You can’t be sure the duke is responsible, Elizabeth.”
“He wanted my father’s money. As my husband with my father gone and his fortune left to me Benjamin controls everything. Can’t you see? It was Benjamin. Somehow he found a way to get what he has wanted all along.”
John wasn’t sure he believed the duke would go so far as to kill the old man, but it didn’t really matter. The duke of Sussex had already done more than enough to his loathing.
“He beat me,” she whispered, and his whole body went rigid. “He was careful to be sure the marks did not show. I try not to anger him, I try, but I cannot seem to please him.” She looked up at him with tearful eyes. “Please, my lord, will you help me? I have nowhere else to go.”
John worked to stay calm. He wanted to kill Benjamin Spencer with his own two hands. “Elizabeth, of course, I will help you.” His mind worked frantically, sorting through the possibilities. “But even if you weren’t married, you couldn’t stay here. I’m a bachelor. The gossip would soon leak out that there is a woman staying in my house.”
“What am I going to do then?”
What indeed? He needed the help of someone he could trust. Someone who would understand. “There is a woman who may be able to help us. I believe the lady may have discovered the truth of Benjamin’s cruelty. Perhaps that is the reason she ended their betrothal.”
“You are speaking of Katherine?”
“She is Lady Habersham now, but yes, that is the woman I speak of. Do you know her?”
John urged Elizabeth to her feet. Picking up her cloak, he enveloped her in his deep disguising folds. “Benjamin won’t like being thwarted. As soon as he discovers you have left him, he’ll be looking for you. With the money he now has at his disposal, he can hire an army if that is his wish.”
“I left him a note. I told him I was too grief-stricken to stay in London. I told him I was returning to my father’s house in the country, that I would await him there. The funeral is set for the end of the week.”
“He will make a point of being there. If you go, he will know that you suspect him. He will see it in your eyes. There is no telling what he might do.”
“I know. That is the reason I came here.”
John nodded. “We’ve some time yet. You’ll have to stay out of sight until we can figure out what to do.”
Elizabeth rested a slight, shaking hand on his arm. “Thank you, my lord.”
A tender smile rose to his lips. “I liked it better when you called me John.”
Elizabeth’s cheeks grew hot, soft spots of color in a face that was otherwise pale.” He made no further comment, just guided her toward the door and ordered the butler to have his carriage brought round. All the while his mind was turning, wondering how he could possibly right the awful wrongs the duke had done to his Elizabeth.
Katherine sat in the drawing room across from a pale-faced Elizabeth Spencer, dressed in a modest house dress. The notion struck her, that by an odd twist of fate, Elizabeth was her sister-in-law, though of course she did not know it. John Stanton stood at her side, protective in his stance as she had never seen him.
The earl had come to her less than an hour ago. He had asked if they could be private, uncertain how he should proceed in front of her new husband. But William wasn’t at home.
Katherine had ushered Stanton into the drawing room, along with the small cloaked figure he had helped down from his carriage. Halfway through the incredible discussion that painted Benjamin Spencer even more a villain than she had believed. William had returned from his meeting with Damien and their man.
At William’s appearance, Lord Stanton had stiffened protectively over Elizabeth, but Katherine had assured them her husband would be most sympathetic to their cause, and that they could totally trust him.
She wasn’t afraid that either of them would guess whom William was. He had told her that he had met John Stanton only once in passing more than ten years ago, and he had never met Elizabeth. Elizabeth glanced across at William, who listened to the tale of her forced marriage, his jaw clamped hard, a muscle in his cheek bunched.
If the situation hadn’t been so awful for poor Elizabeth, Katherine might have smiled at his bookish disguise, tiny wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his straight well-formed nose, his dark hair hidden by a plain gray bagwig that made him look years older than he was. He was dressed more like a tutor than the wealthy noble he was suppose to be, in a plain brown velvet coat, white jabot, and beige breeches, his muscled calves encased in white stockings.
“There is more to the story than I have told you.” Elizabeth suddenly said, and Katherine’s gaze swung sharply in the woman’s direction. “Lord Stanton does not wish me to say this, since as yet I have no proof, but if you are willing to help me, you should know the extent of what you risk.”
“Go on,” William prodded. “Whatever you say will go no further than this room.”
Stanton seemed to relax, but Elizabeth looked even more tense. “I told you my father is dead. I did not say that I believe my husband was somehow responsible for the death.”
William’s face turned grim and Katherine’s stomach knotted. Elizabeth went on to explain about the inheritance Benjamin would control and that she thought her father had begun to grow suspicious of Benjamin’s ill treatment of her.
“I never told my father the truth about him. I didn’t want him to blame himself and I know that he would.” She began to cry softly, and Stanton rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I should have gone to him, told him the truth about Benjamin. My father would have found a way to protect me. He would have used his influence to ruin the duke, it was what it took. Instead, now he is dead.”
Stanton handed her handkerchief, then turned the full measure of his regard on William and Katherine. “My mother and brother are in residence at my country estate. Elizabeth can’t stay here in the city. I am at a loss as to what I should do.”
“Oakley Manor,” Katherine said with a glint of determination. “it shan’t be luxurious, certainly nothing of what she is used to as the wife of a duke.” Stanton’s shoulders went stiff, as if the words were a painful reminder that Elizabeth did not belong to him.
“Katherine’s right,” William added. “Oakley Manor will serve well enough. There are only a handful of servants in residence, but that should work in your favor.”
“And those that are there are extremely discreet,” Katherine added. If Stanton thought it odd that the wealthy heiress lived a frugal existence in what was thought to be a lavish country estate, he did not say so.
“Elizabeth will be safe at Oakley Manor,” Katherine finished. “It is a place the duke will never think to look.”
Stanton came to his feet and so did Elizabeth. “Then Oakley Manor it shall be. You will never know ho
w much your help has meant to Elizabeth and to me. If there is ever a favor you need, anything at all that I can do, do not hesitate to ask.”
William nodded. “The time may well come, and not in the far distant future. If it does, it is good to know Katherine and I may count you among our friends.”
Stanton did not ask what the cryptic words meant, just nodded and shook William’s hand, then bundled Elizabeth up inside her cloak. “If you’ll send word ahead, I’ll see Elizabeth arrives safely.” He glanced down at the top of her head, invisible beneath her hood. “It’s been a difficult time for her. Perhaps I shall stay until she is settled in, if that is alright with you.”
“Of course,” William said. They watched the two of them leave, and the moment they were gone, Katherine went into William’s arms. He did not turn her away.
“He has killed someone else,” she said, her cheek pressed against his solid chest.
“We do not know that for certain.”
A muscle tightened in his jaw. “Sooner or later, his greed will make him careless. When it does, we’ll be ready.”
Katherine pressed closer. She could feel William’s heart beating beneath her hand. Her own heart was beating in a uneasy rhythm.
Suddenly she was afraid.
Chapter Sixteen
The day for Katherine to have tea with Jane Robert’s arrived, but instead of having tea, Katherine found herself seated next to William, jostling along the muddy road in Damien’s borrowed carriage on the way to the Lion’s Den.
Katherine had had to beg William to let her come along.
“I won’t be a burden,” she’d argue. “I can help you. If I dress as a chambermaid, I can move more freely among the servants. They love to gossip. I can get them to tell me things you couldn’t begin to extract from them.”
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