by Anne Gracie
Luke said dryly, “Perhaps she thought if you had plenty of money you might run off and abandon me. Any idea why she might think that?”
Bella dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “She never told me anyth—” She broke off, as a thought occurred to her. “But… if I were a widow—”
“You’d be a very rich one, yes.”
“You fool! You crazy, reckless fool!” She flew at him and thumped him on the chest.
“What? I thought you’d be pleased.”
“So Ramón could have killed you and forced me to—!”
“Oh, Ramón.” He rolled his eyes. “Why does everyone assume that I can’t handle Ramón—will you stop that, you violent little hussy? This is the correct response to learning of a husband’s nobility of character.” His mouth came down over hers, silencing all protests.
After a moment he murmured, “Yes, that’s the kind of thing I mean. Now, let me introduce you to one of the benefits of traveling by carriage.”
Just then there was a loud crack, the carriage listed to one side and slowly ground to a halt. “Problem with the wheel, señor,” the coachman called out.
Luke cursed and released her.
Sixteen
They arrived in Huesca shortly after eight o’clock. The cracked wheel, a flooded river, and even a flock of geese on the road had all contributed to a journey fraught with difficulties and delays. By the time they rolled into town, Luke was in a filthy mood.
Very little pleased him.
After some delay they found a suitable inn, but the only available bedchamber was on the top floor, and was small with a low and uneven ceiling on which he banged his head. Twice.
But he was not going to search the blasted town for another blasted room.
He was tired; he’d spent the day dragging carriages out of mud, changing wheels himself, because hired blasted coachmen had no blasted idea, and chasing geese all over the road, and he wanted his dinner. He was hungry enough to eat a horse.
“Ah, but dinner will not be served for at least another hour, señor.”
“Blasted Spanish hours! And no, I could not be tempted with a blasted boiled egg—I want proper food, not a nursery supper!”
Bella pressed her lips firmly together trying not to laugh.
“I can see that dimple,” he grumbled as the landlord fled. “Think this is all very funny, don’t you, but it wasn’t you who had to ruin your boots in that blasted mud.”
“No,” she agreed. “Nor did I slip in the mess left by a blasted goose and fall on my blasted backside in the middle of the blasted road.” A choked giggle escaped her.
“So glad to have entertained you, my lady,” he said with a sardonic bow. But his mood eased, and a glass of excellent French brandy hastily produced by the landlord did the rest.
By the time dinner arrived he was a lot mellower.
“We’ll make it an early night,” he told her. “Rise at dawn, get on the road as soon as possible. Does that suit you?”
She nodded. She was used to rising at dawn. Convents didn’t encourage lazy mornings in bed, though Bella longed for one. Mama used to lie in bed until almost noon sometimes, reading novels in French and English, drinking chocolate, and nibbling on sweetmeats. It seemed the height of indulgence.
But she was tired and ready for bed, and she was weary of trying to deal with the legacy of the past—and failing. She was looking forward to her new life in England. The sooner it started, the better.
“How many days until your sister’s ball?”
“Ten.” He’d said it without hesitation. Didn’t even have to think, to work out the days. That told her how much it was on his mind.
“Do you think we’ll make it in time?”
He shrugged. “No telling. We’re cutting it very fine, and there’s no telling what the weather will be once we get to the coast. If the wind is in the right direction, and the tides… and we find a ship ready to take us straightaway…” He drained the last of the wine in his glass. “But if we get any more days like the last one…” He shook his head.
But if they didn’t make it in time, Bella knew it wouldn’t be the fault of the winds or the tides or anything encountered on the road. It would be her fault and no one else’s. If she hadn’t come on her quest to save her sister—her futile quest—they would probably have reached the coast by now, and could even be on a ship and sailing to England.
“I’ll be ready at dawn,” she assured him.
They climbed the stairs to their little bedchamber in silence. Bella was tired and feeling a little defeated; she’d failed to rescue her sister, and even Perlita’s act of stealing the pearls for her, and the knowledge of Luke’s return of Bella’s fortune failed to cheer her. She wanted to fling herself into her husband’s arms and make love with him.
He might have told Bella not to expect love from him, and he might agree with her mother that love was a curse, but when he made love to Bella with that slow, sensual intensity of his, it dissolved her worries as well as her bones, and she forgot everything.
Even that he did not love her. Especially that he did not love her.
Luke had married her, he’d protected her, he’d risked his life for her, and he’d made her a rich woman. He gave so much and took so little. It sounded like love… if you didn’t know the whole story.
Bella feared it was all for honor.
On entering the bedchamber, the first thing Luke did was open his portmanteau, take out his nightshirt, and lay it on the bed.
Bella eyed it sourly. She’d dreamed of love, but he wouldn’t even give her a little bit of trust.
She opened her own portmanteau and took out the shirt that she’d worn the night before. A shirtly declaration of war. Sometimes you had to fight for what you wanted. Especially with a stubborn untrusting man.
He eyed her shirt and sucked in his cheeks thoughtfully. “I think I’ll get another brandy.”
“You do that,” she said as she started unfastening her dress. “I’ll be here, in bed, waiting for you.”
He returned about half an hour later. Bella sat up in bed waiting for him, as promised.
She’d left a candle burning on the table on his side of the bed. He glanced at her and blew it out.
Without a word he shrugged off his coat and as usual hung it up. He untied his neckcloth and unbuttoned his waistcoat. Bella counted every button.
She was sure he was going to wear his nightshirt again, but she couldn’t help herself: she was the hopeful type. Maybe in the last half hour he’d changed his mind. Maybe the brandy had given him that little extra encouragement he needed to trust his wife with whatever it was that he’d kept hidden all this time.
She couldn’t imagine what it could be. He acted as if he were ashamed of it, but a war wound was not something to be ashamed of.
She ached for him to trust her.
She ached for him.
He sat to remove his boots, then his stockings. He shoved his breeches down his legs, taking his drawers with them. He folded first the breeches, then the drawers and placed them on the chair.
In the soft light spilling from the fire she could see the elegant line of his hard, horseman’s thighs, his lean, masculine flanks.
He sat back on the bed and pulled the shirt over his head. She could see the broad expanse of his back, the powerful shoulders, the ridged line of his spine.
Bella wanted to scream as he carefully separated the shirt from the undershirt, shook out each garment one by one, and placed it on the chair.
He was naked, wholly naked, for the first time in their marriage.
She waited for him to reach for the nightshirt.
Some coals shifted in the fireplace, and he made a small sound of irritation and, naked in the dark, padded across to the fire. He bent and stoked it with some cut logs. In the firelight he was all bronze and gold and shadow, lean and hard and beautiful.
Bella watched, her mouth dry.
She could not see his chest,
but oh, the long, strong line of his back and those magnificent shoulders. And the firm masculine buttocks…
How could he possibly think scars would make a difference to her? Did he not understand what a fine specimen of manhood he was? Scarred or not, he was perfect, in her opinion.
She longed to run her hands over his firm, manly flesh, feel the corded muscles of his arms, the deep chest, the perfect shoulders. Who knew that a man’s shoulders could be so beautiful? She wanted to touch him everywhere, see all of him, as he had seen and touched her.
He padded back to the bedside, a dark silhouette limned by firelight, and… No! she exclaimed silently, as he pulled his nightshirt over his head.
She scrunched herself down into the bed.
He slid into bed and pulled up the bedclothes. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
Civilized people didn’t quarrel, she told herself. Civilized people said polite good-nights and went to sleep as if there weren’t a huge gulf between them.
She hit him.
“Ouch! What was that for?”
“You know what for,” she muttered.
“I don’t.”
She hit him again.
“What the devil is the matter with you?” He sat up.
“I won’t have you teasing me!”
“Teasing you?”
“Yes! Walking around naked, making me believe that at last you might trust me a little—but all the time you were just teasing me. Making me want you!”
He stared at her, his face unreadable and shadowed against the firelight.
“Making you want me?”
“Yes, it’s not fair. How would you like it if I pranced around the room fiddling with logs, stark naked and bathed in firelight—”
“I’d like it very much.”
“—and then I come back and shove myself into a huge, ugly nightshirt, covering every inch—”
“Not every inch, surely.”
“Stop teasing me! Yes, every inch that counts.”
“Every inch counts, believe me,” he murmured. “And the inches that count most are not impeded by the shirt.”
She would have hit him again, only she didn’t want to make a habit of it. “It’s not a joke, Luke.”
“I never thought it was,” he said in quite a different tone. “And if you cannot accept me as I am, I will go else—”
She grabbed him by the arm as he rose. “Don’t you dare walk out on me again, for if you do, I warn you Luke, I will follow you—in my shift if I must!”
He sat back on the bed, and she released his arm.
“You say I cannot accept you as you are, but it’s you who cannot accept yourself, who thinks he must hide himself from me. It’s not modesty, so don’t try to pretend it is. You took off your shirt without a thought when I was thirteen. I remember.”
She waited for him to say something, but there was no sound in the room, only the fire hissing gently and the sound of his breathing.
“I saw you then and you were perfect,” she said softly.
Still he said nothing.
She swallowed. “I have been thinking a lot about that day… and, and what came after it. It’s my fault you couldn’t get an annulment. I didn’t realize what my aunt was asking me. She knew the man had cut all my clothes off me, and that I was naked, and she asked if he hurt me and I said yes, because he did. And, and then she asked me if there was blood, and I said yes, because there was, only… only not the blood she meant.”
“I see.”
She wished she could see his face.
“So I’m sorry. It’s not much of a thanks for the good deed you did me, to tie you to me for life. I know you didn’t want me for a wife, and I… I know a man like you wouldn’t ever choose someone like me, but… but I’m the wife you’ve got, and we must make the best of it.” She stared at his grim, silent silhouette, waiting for him to say it was all right, that he forgave her mistake, to repeat that he was content in his marriage.
But as the silence stretched, she knew it was just a lie he’d told to shut Ramón up.
Oh God, she was going to cry. She wouldn’t. She refused to. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her lips tightly together.
But she must have made a sound, for he leaned forward, lit the candle, and shone it on her face. “You’re crying?”
“No, I’m not.” She turned her face away, scrubbing at the tears that had welled up, unexpected and unwanted. She despised tears.
There was another long silence.
“And all of this is about me removing my shirt, is that it?” His voice was quiet, but there was an unsteady note in it that caught at her heart.
She leaned forward and laid her hand on his knee. “Luke, however it happened, mistake or not, I’m your wife. I made sacred vows to love you and honor you and I promise you I will never ever break them. There is nothing you cannot show me, no disfigurement that can make any difference to me. I don’t care if it’s ugly or—”
“Ugly?” He gave a harsh, jagged laugh. “You think I’m hiding something ugly?” In one fluid movement he pulled his nightshirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. “There! My disfigurement! Satisfied?”
Bella stared. She couldn’t believe her eyes. “That’s all it is? A tattoo?” All this fuss for a little tattoo?
“It’s not a tattoo.” He passed her the candle and she looked closer.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
It was a scar, yet it was like no scar she’d ever seen before. In the hollow beneath his right shoulder was a rose, its petals black-edged and raised against the surface of his skin. Carved into his skin—the edges of the petals were ridges of hardened skin, stained black to stand out.
It was beautiful. And horrible in its careful, deadly intricacy.
“Who did this to you?” she whispered. Each line, each petal had been sliced into him. Who would carve such a thing into a man’s living flesh?
He didn’t answer. She put the candle aside and touched the rose with gentle fingertips. He flinched. She looked a question at him.
“It doesn’t hurt. It was done seven years ago.”
And yet he’d flinched.
It must have been agony at the time. Some men liked such things, she knew. Tattoos and decorative scars. But if he liked it, why hide it? “You chose to have this done?”
His jaw tightened and he looked away. His knuckles were white.
“It was forced on you?” she whispered in horror. “By whom?”
He hesitated, and for a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. “A gift from La Cuchilla.”
“The Blade,” she whispered and looked at the cuts in his flesh. La Cuchilla. He’d used the feminine form but it must be a mistake, she thought. It could not have been a woman… could it?
He took a deep breath and didn’t quite meet her gaze. “Now, if your curiosity is satisfied, wife…” he said in an attempt at a light, jocular tone that failed miserably.
Bella’s curiosity wasn’t nearly satisfied, but she could not deny him, not seeing the vile, beautiful thing engraved in his smooth, warm flesh. Done a year after he’d married her.
She pulled off the shirt she was wearing and flung it on top of his other one. She was naked beneath. She drew him down to her, covering his face with kisses, as if somehow she could make up for the dreadful thing that had been done to him.
He pressed his face against her breasts for a long moment, holding her tight against him, while a long shudder racked his body.
Bella ran her hands over his body, kissing every bit of him she could reach, glorying in him, knowing it was futile to comfort him for something done seven years before, but unable to stop herself from trying.
He gently rubbed his face against her breasts, then his mouth closed hotly over her nipple and she gasped. He teased it gently with his tongue and teeth, and then sucked hard. She arched beneath him as a deep shudder rippled through her. He continued suckling and teasing until she was squi
rming and writhing under him.
He slid his hand down her belly, between her legs where she ached for him.
“No,” she said, and with every bit of self-control she could muster, she pulled away.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she panted. “My turn.”
She pushed back the covers, baring him to her gaze in the candlelight, her big, golden warrior.
She ran her fingertips lightly over his chest, learning his texture, the firm flesh, the hard muscles, exploring the small nubs of his flat male nipples. His body was hard and hot, and she loved the feel of it, the feel of him.
She bent and flickered her tongue over his tiny, hard nipples, tasting salt and a sharp, masculine flavor that was all Luke. She loved the taste of him. She teased his nipples as he’d teased her, nibbling and gently biting them, scraping her teeth over their tips, and she smiled as he shivered and arched, as she had.
She smoothed her palms over the bands of hard muscle across his belly and scratched lightly like a cat down the line of dark hair arrowing from his belly to his groin.
Her hands wandered lower, and feeling bold, she ran one finger lightly along the hardened length of him. He shuddered under her touch. She caressed the sensitive tip, tracing one fingertip gently over the tiny bead of liquid, smoothing it over him. The hot, satiny feel of him entranced her, and her palm tightened around him.
“Witch,” he groaned, but his eyes were half closed with pleasure, and he shuddered in a way she recognized. Emboldened by his obvious pleasure, she wrapped her whole hand around him and squeezed.
“Enough.” His body was hard trembling with barely controlled need. “Do you want me to explode?”
He slid his hands between her thighs. “Now,” he muttered.
“Yes, now, my love.”
His eyes flew open, but she had not the courage to repeat it. “Now.” She parted her legs and took him into her, and with a moan, he thrust and thrust, his gaze locked on hers, unbroken, until she shattered in his arms and he shattered with her.
The soles of his feet burned, his vitals were molten agony, every part of his body screamed with silent pain, and until the blade cut into him he hadn’t thought it was possible to feel any more pain.