Clare’s eyes danced and her cheeks were rosy, a sure sign that Lord Lydgate had charmed her into a high state of excitement. “Lord Lydgate asked me to waltz.”
“Oh,” said Lizzie. “Well. Congratulations.”
“Is he not the handsomest man you have ever seen?” demanded Clare.
Before she could respond, her friend rushed on. “I do not think much of his cousin, do you? No matter how handsome he may be. Lord Steyne has not asked one lady to dance, and he’s barely exchanged two words with anyone besides Lady Chard and the Mowbrays.”
“Most disagreeable,” said Lizzie. “Let us hope his visit is of short duration.”
They were about to enter the antechamber to the ballroom when Lizzie heard a cold, husky voice she recognized at once as Steyne’s. Her hand closed around Clare’s wrist to halt her. She put her fingertip to her lips.
They remained hidden from the antechamber by a heavy velvet curtain, but that didn’t completely muffle the speech that now came to them from the other side.
Without inflexion or heat, Steyne was saying, “… want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.”
Lydgate said, “Do you think to further your cause by doing your usual impression of an iceberg? That won’t wash, you know.”
“I did not come here to exchange inanities with a parcel of country bumpkins.”
Clare gave an indignant squeak, but Lizzie gripped her wrist tighter as a warning to keep quiet.
Lydgate retorted, “Charming! I can see you will win your way into her good graces all too easily.”
“Would you like to wager on the chance that I won’t?” said Steyne in a lazy drawl.
“Make her fall in love with you? I’d like to see that.”
“Lydgate, you’re so naïve. Love has nothing to do with it.”
Two ladies overtook Lizzie and Clare and went through to the antechamber then, and the gentlemen were obliged to cease their conversation and return to the ballroom.
“Well, of all the arrogance!” Clare said, eyes bright with anger. “Of whom do you think he was speaking, Lizzie? I did not realize the marquis had acquaintance here.”
Lizzie’s fury bloomed red-hot, like an explosion in her head. She’d not the least doubt to whom Steyne referred. The slight emphasis he’d placed on the word “love” seemed significant. As if he meant that some other emotion would have everything to do with his success in charming her. An emotion like—
“Ooh!” she said.
So, Lord Steyne thought it would be easy to win his way into her good graces, did he? Lizzie’s fan struck her palm with a snap. He could not be more wrong about that.
That overheard conversation decided her. She would meet Lord Steyne in the garden at midnight and once she was certain he did not mean to send her back to her father, she would admit to her identity.
But if he expected her to fall rapturously into his arms, he was mightily mistaken.
Chapter Five
Xavier had been certain she wouldn’t come. The garden was dark, lit only by a gibbous moon. The denizens of Little Thurston did not run to elaborate hospitality involving Chinese lanterns strung around the gardens. The assembly went on inside, and no one ventured out here into the dark.
The garden was informal and would be a riot of color in the daytime. Now the night leached its exuberance. Moonlight pooled like spilled milk on the paths and the flats of leaves.
He sought a place they might conceal themselves from anyone who might look out a window at an inopportune time.
His intentions toward the lady calling herself Miss Allbright were anything but honorable.
Ah, but that was not true, was it? The corner of his mouth curled up. They were married. He could smooth his hands over that sinuous, slim body with impunity—if not without some protest from the lady herself.
Despite her lack of curves, there was a softness, a natural gentleness about her that he found immensely appealing. She didn’t want for spirit, however, as she’d shown him that afternoon in Lady Chard’s drawing room.
He meant to make her want him, crave him like a man in the desert craves his next drink. It surprised him to discover how very much he wanted her.
He heard the whisper of someone’s steps on the path and turned.
She paused a few feet from him, as if poised for flight. The light from the ballroom limned her tall, willowy frame and made the trembling pearls in her ears gleam and flash.
“I did not think you’d come,” he said as she stepped into a patch of moonlight. Now he saw the expression on her face was determinedly impassive. He had to admire Lizzie Allbright’s steel.
“Why not?” Her lifted eyebrow spoke of unconcern, but the mere fact of her presence told him she was anything but indifferent.
“Shall we sit?” He indicated a stone bench behind them.
“No, thank you.” Her voice was crisp. “Lord Steyne, this is most unconventional, not to say improper.”
“Improper?” he repeated. “But how can that be? I am your husband.”
She stared at him in a convincing display of surprised disbelief. Then she gave an uncertain laugh. “Is this some kind of jest?”
She was a good actress, but not good enough. Why would she be here if she didn’t remember their history?
“I thought you might take that tack,” he said. “The good people of Little Thurston think you lost your memory. You and I know that’s not true.”
“It is true.” She gave another laugh, a shakier one this time. “Dear Heaven, if I were married, I’d remember it,.”
“One would think so,” said Xavier.
“But this is preposterous. You are clearly mad.” She spoke the line with enough calm that he knew she’d rehearsed it.
“My dear Miss Allbright, I have all the proof I need to show that you are—or were—Lady Alexandra Simmons, daughter of the Earl of Bute.”
“Good gracious, how high and mighty that sounds,” she said. “No, really, I must tell Miss Beauchamp all about it. She will be in stitches to think that I am some noblewoman.”
He moved closer. “Indeed you are. And not just some noblewoman, either. You are my marchioness.”
She sobered. “You are mad.”
“Undoubtedly,” he said. “But I do have a proposition for you.”
Her hands fluttered as if to ward off both him and his proposition. “Really, my lord, I—”
“My dear Alexandra,” he said softly. “Until now, I’ve been content to let you live your own life. I’ve made you the gift of leaving you be.” He paused. “Now I need something from you in return.”
Her body swayed back a little as if she reeled from a blow. She seemed to catch herself. “You mean … You mean you’ve known where I was all this time?” An admission, but he didn’t pounce on it.
“I knew almost from the first.”
He paused while she digested this. Then he said, “I assured myself that you were safe and content, of course. I would have intervened otherwise.”
She raised her gaze to his. “Then you are not here to take me back to my father?”
“Your father has lately been obliged to leave England,” said Xavier.
Her eyes were wide. “Did you have something to do with that?”
“I?” said Xavier, disconcerted at her insight. “Why should you think that?”
It had taken years to slowly dismantle Bute’s fortune piece by piece, but Xavier was nothing if not patient. Bankrupt, hounded by creditors, Bute had fled to the Continent. Xavier had done that to him in vengeance for Nerissa. And for this girl.
She shook her head, frowning into the distance. “I saw you that night, you know. With that whip wrapped around his throat.” She met his eyes briefly, then looked away. “A part of me was glad.”
So that was it. He’d feared his violence was the cause of her flight. Had she also seen his mother? Might she have recognized Nerissa with lash marks crossing her lower back like ghastly stay laces? Could that slip of a girl possibly h
ave interpreted the scene correctly when even he had not?
“How did you keep apprised of my welfare?” she said. “Was it Lady Chard?”
“Mr. Allbright kept me informed.”
Her hand flew to her cheek. “Mr. Allbright! He knows?”
“He knows,” said Xavier.
“Oh. Oh.” She swayed and groped a little, as if for support, but there was nothing solid within her reach except him. He took her elbow to steady her and slipped her fan from her slackened grasp. He led her to sit on the bench.
Flipping his tails, Xavier sat beside her and waited.
She buried her face in her hands. “All this time…” Her voice was muffled, but he made out the words. “All this time I’ve felt so guilty and he … He knew.”
He waited, hoping she would not turn into one of those hysterical females he so deplored.
It was a lot to take in, of course. He couldn’t blame her for being upset. But he had to tell her these things. They’d make it easier for her to accept what now must be.
She didn’t weep, however. Her breath came in huge, shuddering gasps, which, affected him in some strange way he couldn’t quite define.
“Look at me,” he said, and knew a fleeting wish that his voice didn’t always sound so clipped and cold.
Slowly, she lowered her hands and raised her head.
In a low tone, he said, “I had hoped never to bother you again. But now I need your help, Alexandra.”
“Lizzie,” she corrected on a long exhale. “My name is Lizzie now. I won’t answer to anything else.”
“Lizzie, then.”
He turned her fan in his hands, frowning down at it. He opened it, then shut it again. For some reason, it was far more difficult to phrase his proposition than he’d expected.
He met her gaze. “Lizzie,” he said, “it is time for you to fulfill your duties as my wife.”
Chapter Six
Reeling from the marquis’s disclosures, Lizzie fought in vain for calm. All those times she’d lied to Mr. Allbright—flat-out lied to him—and he’d never shown by the flicker of an eyelash that he knew the truth. The vicar’s capacity for forgiveness humbled and shamed her.
Slowly, she came back to the present. With a jolt, she realized what Steyne actually wanted. Well, hadn’t she anticipated something of the sort?
“You need an heir,” she said dully.
“We are married, ma’am. I could attempt to beguile you with pretty words, but I don’t believe in prevarication.”
She gave a choked, mirthless laugh. She could not imagine him ever indulging in flattery.
“Just so,” he said, as if he read her thoughts. “You see, you are the only one who can give me a legitimate heir.”
“I’m not a simpleton, my lord,” she snapped. Of course she saw his point. It was abundantly clear. What she did not understand was why he’d abandoned her in the first place. Why he’d waited until now to pluck her from obscurity.
And Mr. Allbright had never given her the slightest hint.…
She thought of the vicar’s words to her tonight and touched the pearls at her throat.
She supposed she must be glad she hadn’t known Steyne was aware of her presence here. Rejected not merely once, but every day of the eight years since they married. He could have come for her at any time, yet he had not.
“I daresay this has all come as something of a surprise,” Steyne said.
A surprise? She almost laughed. “Indeed.”
“You will need time to collect yourself,” he said. “But allow me to tell you now that my decision won’t alter.”
Some of her spirit returned. “Regardless of my wishes? You do not even care that I am thoroughly opposed to … to…”
He watched her and let her flounder without mercy. Then he said with something of a purr, “I will teach you any number of terms for what we are going to do, dear Lizzie. And any number of ways to experience pleasure.”
In spite of her smarting pride, a dark thrill shot through her. The image of him moving over her in the candlelight made her throat tighten and her heart beat faster.
“You are shocking and … and vulgar. I won’t listen to you.”
She remembered the high, hot burst of ecstasy, the unwilling sense of closeness she’d felt in his arms. All that, despite their lack of empathy or acquaintance.
The words she’d overheard earlier that evening rang in her ears: Love has nothing to do with it.
To surrender herself to his ministrations without the slightest hope or expectation of love—that would be torment, indeed. To take this man inside her, yet never come close to touching anything inside him.
To know that no matter how much she might long for true intimacy, such emotional connection was beyond him.
If she hadn’t experienced the depth of his remoteness for herself that night, she might well have been tempted by his looks, his rakish audacity, and his air of mystery. But the desolation she’d known when he’d left her with such brutal coldness was the greatest anguish she’d ever experienced.
It was as if she’d climbed aboard a life raft after years on a desert isle, and the raft had marooned her in some arctic wasteland. But she’d escaped her father’s house by her wits and determination, with no one to help her. She’d found a haven, safe and warm, in Little Thurston.
Now she said, “If I refuse?”
He could not, would not, force her to do this. She knew she’d have to obey him eventually, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. She wanted to punish him in some small measure for leaving her behind.
He did not answer at first. Then he said, “Do not defy me, Lizzie. You’ll discover I always get my way in the end.”
She persisted. “That night, you said we would not be obliged to see each other again.”
“Now she remembers,” he murmured with a sideways glance. His gaze lowered to her fan. “I repented of that statement almost immediately. I came back for you.”
She hadn’t known that. She’d seen the shocking tableau in her father’s bedchamber and fled.
With the small, insidious hope that her new husband had indeed made an end of her sadistic father. And the sure knowledge that she did not want to be there to find out.
He had violence in him, this nobleman, and a ruthless determination. He would not scruple to do what was necessary to take her. Even so, his gentleness with her that fateful night was something she also remembered. The fleeting moments of tenderness. The wild, throbbing pleasure he’d drawn from her body, even against her will.
The knowledge that he had returned to claim her on their wedding night gave his present demand a wholly different complexion. If he’d taken her away with him that night, she’d have given him sons gladly. Or at least, willingly.
Could he grow to love her? As their history stood, it seemed beyond the realm of possibility.
But children … Children. She’d never let herself even think of having babies to love.
He sighed. “Two sons. That’s all I ask.”
She choked. “All?”
“If we are very lucky, it won’t take more than a few years of, ah, cohabitation.”
Oh, dear Lord. She hardly trusted her own voice. “And after that?” she managed.
He waved a hand. “Naturally, you may go your own way. You might please to remain at my country estate. You could even purchase a home of your own in Little Thurston if you wished. You and I would lead separate lives.”
She marveled at him. This sort of existence was utterly opposed to the interested involvement, the sense of community and happiness she’d found in Little Thurston.
The thought made her heart give a hard ache.
She rose. “My lord, I can only suggest that you are perhaps a little mad. None of these prospects entices me in the least.”
He stood also. “I am sorry to hear that. Most ladies would jump at the chance to be a marchioness.”
Perhaps most ladies would, but not Lizzie. She’d lived
without love or kindness while surrounded by luxury. She did not value material wealth.
Suddenly, she knew she could never be happy with Steyne unless he loved her. Because she very much feared she was falling in love with him.
“Why didn’t you have me declared dead?” she said with suppressed violence. “Find a willing female to bear your children like a docile broodmare? I’m sure there must be any number of them lining up for the honor.”
He watched her for the longest time, until she wanted to scream at him to speak.
“Because I want you,” he said finally. “No one else will do.”
That stunning pronouncement made her flush with ire. “You mock me.”
“I assure you I do not.”
Unconvinced, she paced away from him, then turned. “Will you expose me? If you tell my neighbors I’m your wife, I’ll deny all memory of it.”
“I have no desire to be a nine days’ wonder in this village or anywhere else,” said Steyne. “Do you think I wish anyone to know I was forced to wed you? Not to mention airing my mother’s dirty laundry.”
Of course not. His pride was as great as hers.
He paused. “This is what I propose: My kinsman, the Duke of Montford is holding a house party at Harcourt. I want you to come. You may bring your little friend if you like. What’s her name?”
“Miss Beauchamp,” Lizzie said. “And I don’t see what you can hope to accomplish by inviting me to a house party.”
“Why, Miss Allbright,” said Lord Steyne with a saturnine curl of his lips. “Only that I mean to seduce you.”
His answer flustered her so much, she could barely find the words to reply. In a stifled tone, she said, “But—but you will introduce me as your marchioness. I’ll have no choice in the matter, anyway.”
“As I said, I am hardly in favor of making a scandal with the story of our marriage.”
He still held her fan. He tapped it on his thigh as he considered. “Only your father and my mother knew that Lady Alexandra Simmons and the Marquis of Steyne were wed that day. Your father is not here to dispute any story we care to tell. My mother was exiled to St. Petersburg a few years ago and need not trouble us. The parson has been eliminated also.”
The Wickedest Lord Alive Page 6