“Of course, my lord. This is your home,” she said with a sigh. “However, I pray you have not come expecting to claim your marital rights,” she added, feeling her irritation surge.
A brow rose at that. “Ah…is that what you believe?” He tilted his head slightly as he studied her. His intense gaze lapped at her body like flames from a fire. “And how are your injuries faring today, my lady wife?”
Did he care, or had he come to her truly expecting to consummate the marriage tonight?
She couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to lie with Edgeware in his bed. Surely, the enjoyment she felt from their passionate encounter in his study was nothing more than an aberration, a fantastic deviation from reality. She still couldn’t convince herself that what she’d felt at his hands was nothing more than a heated dream. She knew she shouldn’t hope that she would ever forget herself so completely again. She wasn’t comfortable with her body. According to Lord Mercer, her hips were too thin and her breasts too small. And she was impossibly cold. Hers wasn’t a body that could give pleasure to a man.
“I believe I will live, my lord,” she said sharply. “However, I do not believe I am up to any strenuous exertions to my person.”
“I see.”
She closed her eyes and tried to slow her erratic breathing. Prickly nerves were leading her into dangerous territory. She needed to calm down. But she was finding it nearly impossible to do so while a war was waging within her heart. She wanted him to touch her, to caress her, to love her. She wanted everything he could possibly give her. She wanted to feel him move over her and press her deep into his thick mattress.
But no…
She didn’t think she was strong enough to endure the look of disappointment she’d find in his eyes after bedding her. Her frigid body would inevitably disappoint him. And that disappointment would eventually lead to loathing and resentment.
The situation was impossible! Why had he married her? He barely even knew her.
“Lauretta told me about your butler. I am truly sorry,” she said carefully, hoping to turn the subject to a more pressing—and safer—topic.
Edgeware ground his jaw, clearly upset. “His death will be avenged.” She felt the danger in his voice. It made the hair on the back of her neck rise. Her husband would make a formidable enemy.
“She also told me that you were attacked today. I pray you are well.”
“Well enough.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he took a half step toward her. They were still yards apart, not quite having to yell across a great expanse, but close. When he spoke, his voice was icy. “There is no reason for you to worry. I have the situation well in hand. In fact, I will be posting a footman at your chamber door.”
“To keep me in or others out, my lord?”
Her sharp tone seemed to break through his icy demeanor. He heaved a long, audible sigh and took another step toward her chair by the fire. “Could you perhaps use my given name when you wish to curse me to the devil?”
“I cannot possibly know what you mean, my lord.”
He took another step toward her. Her heart rate quickened.
“I mean: the tone you use with me would be more palatable if you softened the blow by using my given name. It is Nigel, need I remind you? Not a terrible chore to trip up the tongue.” He took yet another step toward her. He was standing nearly on top of her now. “I will not insist, though.”
“Thank you—” she hesitated, unsure “—Lord Edgeware.”
Fire flashed behind his eyes. “Elsbeth—” he bit off and stopped to heave another deep sigh. “I had come to apprise you of the situation and to assure you that you are in no danger. However, I see Lady Lauretta has already done so. Apparently, there is no other purpose for this meeting, so I will wish you a good night.”
He turned. She’d thought he’d at least brush her cheek with a kiss. But he had not. Instead, he’d left her cold and more alone than before.
“My lord,” she called out before he reached the door.
He stopped. Her heart counted the number of beats it took before he turned to face her again. “Yes?”
How could this sham of a marriage have any hope of working? The promise of long, miserable days appeared before her. This was not the future she had dreamed of when praying for her first husband’s death, God forgive her.
But this was the future she was being offered.
Lord Edgeware was watching her. His dark expressive eyes mirrored her distress, her confusion. But there was also something else in that look he was giving her, something she wasn’t yet ready to recognize. Deep in her heart she longed to believe that illusive something she was seeing might mean that there could be a safe, comfortable future waiting for her. A future where she could be happy. But to try and reach for it would mean she’d have to risk a heart she’d long protected. And yet, she had to try.
She wanted him to kiss her. To love her. But she didn’t know how to ask for those things.
“Nigel,” she whispered.
She struggled to wrench the words she needed to say from deep within her heart, but they refused to come. She shook her head and waved him away. Her voice tightened again. “I am glad you came to talk with me. Good evening, my lord.”
He stared at her, his brows furrowed. He just stood there, refusing to leave.
Her heart beat wildly in her chest, and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She didn’t know him, didn’t understand his silent moods. Was he angry? Was he plotting to punish her? Or was his silence a kind of punishment?
Without a word of warning he stalked back over to where she was reclining. And before she could protest or pull away, he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. His mouth tasted of brandy and spice. She sighed and leaned forward, seeking more, silently pleading for everything she couldn’t find the courage to ask of him. His was a flavor she craved.
He cupped his hand at the nape of her neck and deepened the kiss. When she parted her lips, their tongues touched. He made love to her mouth with such exquisite care tears sprang to her eyes. She reached around his neck, pulling him closer, wanting everything he was willing to offer. And still, she was unsure how to ask—no, demand—that he give up his heart to her.
She barely kept herself from crying out when he slowly peeled his lips away. His jaw tightened and he looked so serious as he reached under her and carefully scooped her up into his arms, lifting her from her comfortable spot on the chaise lounge.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“Taking you to bed, my lady wife.”
Chapter Nineteen
Wind whipped up from the shore. Another storm was approaching, and this one promised to be worse than the one that had battered the coast only a few days earlier. Nigel stood for a moment at the edge of the cliff, watching the interplay of the billowy black clouds against the early morning sky.
“No smuggler will be foolish enough to brave the waters tonight. You can give your men a rest, Edgeware. All will be quiet,” George said, as he approached the cliff’s edge.
George, George. A sharp pain ripped into Nigel’s chest.
Late last night he’d personally delivered Elsbeth to her bed, the narrow bed she’d been using all week. He’d been tempted to carry her away to his own chamber. But he doubted she would have allowed it. By the time he’d finished settling her beneath her bed’s quilted counterpane, his whole body had ached to stay with her, to make love to her. But she was injured and weak. She needed her rest. She needed time to grow accustomed to the thought of being married to him.
Even so, he’d lingered just inside the door, wanting to crawl into her bed and sleep at her side. To rest, knowing she was in the same room as him, knowing that she was safe and well. He’d waited longer than he knew he should, hoping she’d invite him to stay. She didn’t. Instead, she had called for her maid. With a heavy heart, he’d left.
And that was where Charlie had found him, just outside Elsbeth’s chamber. His cousin had taken one look at him
and pushed a bottle of French wine into his hands. Smuggled French wine.
“What the hell are you doing with this?” Nigel had demanded right before he’d herded his cousin into his study before anyone could see them. “Do you know what this looks like?” he demanded once they were alone.
“Nige, the bottle doesn’t belong to me.” A black look had darkened Charlie’s normally jovial blue eyes. “I did a little poking around after Jenkins’s body was discovered. I found this bottle, along with several more crates of illegal goods on George’s estate.”
Not willing to take his cousin at his word—not for this—Nigel went skulking through George’s property. And like Charlie had said, he’d found crate after crate of smuggled goods in one of George’s storerooms. The discovery struck him more sharply than a mortal blow to the chest.
Could it be true? Could George, one of the few men he trusted with his life, be behind the smuggling operation…and the attempts on his life…and the attempt on Elsbeth’s life…and his butler’s murder? He’d sat up all night trying to figure out what he should do, how he should approach George. And still, he had no answers. Friend or not, the men responsible for those crimes would hang.
“This wind is ruining my cravat,” Charlie said as he joined them. He seemed to have no interest in the sky, the cliff, or the conversation. He found a stump and, after cleaning away the dirt and debris with a handkerchief, plopped down onto it and began poking at the soft ground with a twig.
Nigel wished Charlie and George would both just vanish for a while. Neither man was looking much like a hero this morning. Last night, after presenting Nigel with George’s smuggled bottle of wine, Charlie had once again resumed his begging for money. He’d claimed he needed close to thirty thousand pounds for a solid investment. An investment whose details he had refused to disclose.
Nigel dug his fingers into his palm. The last time he’d declined to pay Charlie a large sum to pay for some supposedly solid investment, the money had disappeared from his accounts all the same.
That Charlie, his harmless cousin, would stoop low enough to rob him to pay off what was more likely a reckless gambling debt than some thought-out investment—and was no doubt plotting to do so again—only pricked his already ravaged nerves.
I’m overrun by betrayals!
Tonight.
Tonight, according to Charlie, the villagers were saying that the smugglers were planning to land again with their booty. “You will see then, Nige, who your true friends are,” he’d said.
Nigel flexed his hand, his need for the relief only a paintbrush could provide him, growing urgent. Images of George being led to the gallows for murder—for brutally killing his butler, an innocent man who’d deserved better, he’d lead the bastard up the roughhewn stairs himself—and images of Charlie flirting shamelessly with Elsbeth while frittering away the Edgeware fortune joined the storm-whipped wind, echoing accusations in his ear.
“Enough!” he shouted.
George and Charlie, who’d been silent for quite some time, both jumped.
“Edgeware?”
“Are you quite cracked, Nige?”
Nigel turned to the two men he’d once trusted with his life and felt a strong urge to do murder. Whose? He couldn’t say.
Logic dictated he wait for tonight and catch the smugglers in the act. He needed proof. And, thanks to his uncle’s tutelage, Nigel was a ruthlessly logical man except when it came to his wife.
“Elsbeth,” he said and abruptly turned back toward the house. This was too much for him to handle on his own. Whether she welcomed his company or not, he needed her.
* * * *
After winning another heated argument with Molly, Elsbeth had risen from bed, and despite the pulling pain in her side, donned a light yellow morning gown and made her way to the breakfast room. A footman brought her a plate of toast and jams as she eased into a chair in the empty room. From where she sat at the small table, next to a series of large windows that looked out into the estate’s gardens, she could see the sham ruin dedicated to the goddess Athena where Lord Edgeware—no, he was to be Nigel to her now—where Nigel had first looked upon her with that wolfish gleam.
And kissed her.
It hadn’t been just a gentle brush of the lips, as he had promised. She pressed the tips of her fingers to her lips, remembering.
That kiss, and all the others that followed, demanded very little and had been like a series of silent pleas. Like his mouth was inviting her to return his passion with the same intensity—offering, instead of taking.
Gracious, she’d allowed her caution to be lulled by his subtle appeal. His seduction had appeared so seemingly harmless. In his study she’d given him her body and look what that had won her, an unwanted marriage with a man who was a bigger danger to her than her first husband.
It was true that Lord Mercer was a beast, but at least she’d realized early on in their marriage that he was not Dionysus—and not a man whom she could ever love. No matter how he had tormented her or tortured her—her heart had always been safe.
With Nigel, that layer of safety was slipping away. He was as different from the late Lord Mercer as day was from night. When angered, he might not throw her to the mercy of his friends like a master would toss a piece of meat to his hounds. It was worse. When she gazed into Nigel’s expressive eyes she could almost feel his soul and a deep sense of loneliness. She could almost hear in his clipped voice the grieving, confused boy who’d lost his mother at birth and his father at the tender age of three or four.
This was a man who could rival Dionysus in his depths of feeling. This was a man who could tempt her heart. Such a man had the power to destroy her, for like Dionysus, she felt herself tumbling into love.
“Elsbeth!” Nigel’s sharp voice carried down the halls shattering her thoughts. “Elsbeth!” She turned toward the door in time to see the servants fleeing the room.
“Lord Edge—Nigel,” she said. Her heart raced at the sight of him. “What urgency has you shouting my name through the halls of your estate like a madman, or is this how you plan to call for your wife…my lord?”
He eased the door closed behind him and started toward her. With each step the coiled tension in him appeared to melt away. His hunched shoulders began to relax.
“Elsbeth,” he said her name without heat this time. “Things are—I need—uh, we need to talk.”
She set the toast she was holding back on the plate in front of her. “Yes, I suppose we should.”
He settled into a chair next to hers and took his time drawing off his gloves. With a sigh, he reached out to touch her hand. “Dionysus,” he said and paused. “There is something I need to confess.”
He was going to reveal Dionysus’s identity at last. But she wasn’t ready to hear it, not when she was nearly convinced Dionysus was Charlie. Her heart wasn’t ready to face that sad truth, not this morning when her injuries had left her feeling weak and her feelings muddled. “I don’t want to hear his name. Please, not now. He’s a bounder who has threatened your life and coldly murdered your butler. As long as you recognize him for the villain that he is, that is all I need to know.”
“But—”
“No,” she said and sandwiched his hand between her own. “I will not give him the power to hurt me again. From now on, I will decide my own future…and with whom I intend to spend it. Edgewa—Nigel, you have been kind to me.”
“Kind?” he sounded hurt by the charge.
“You have given me a great gift. You make me feel almost loveable. But, still, I do not know what kind of wife I will make you.”
“Do not worry about the future, dove. I will make everything right, I promise I will. And I will make you happy.” He sounded so confoundingly sure of himself. “You will love me. And after tonight, everything will be—”
“No, it won’t,” she said not letting him finish. She didn’t want to love him. It would be safer not to love him, not to open her heart up for rejection or pain. It w
ould be safer to give him no hope for the future. Perhaps then he would release her from this spell he was weaving around her.
“Please, Elsbeth, let me explain what’s—”
“Lord Mercer was a difficult man,” she said, looking away. That much was true. And the lie that followed came easily to her lips. “I don’t know if my heart survived the encounter. I don’t know if I am able to feel the feelings I should feel toward a husband. It simply doesn’t seem possible.” She drew an unsteady breath. “I beg you reconsider our marriage.”
“No.” He stood with a rush, almost knocking his chair over backwards. Pain flashed in his eyes, but he quickly concealed it. His voice hardened. “My marriage to you, though shabbily executed, is a decision I will never regret. If it takes a lifetime, I will make you understand that.”
There was something about his determination that set her heart throbbing again. And it frightened her.
“Please,” her voice cracked with emotion. “Please, I beg you. Leave me alone.”
He lowered his head and turned away. He had the door open and was nearly in the hallway by the time she found her voice again.
“The bullet the other day,” she asked. “Are you certain it was meant for you?” She no longer was. It was becoming more and more clear that Charlie viewed her relationship with Nigel as a roadblock to his riches.
“The danger will soon be gone.” His voice was hard, clipped. “I have a plan to trap the villain.”
“And Charlie?” she pressed. “You still trust him?”
Nigel waved his hand angrily as he retreated down the hall. “Charlie’s harmless.”
No, blast it! She had to bite her tongue to keep herself from shouting. Charlie has never been harmless!
Charlie was the one who had always found the liquor cabinet key whenever she would hide it from Lord Mercer. And he was the one who’d often provoked the worst of Lord Mercer’s violent rages, especially when he knew the drunken lord would take his frustrations out on her. Charlie seemed to enjoy watching her torment, seemed to enjoy watching the events unfold like a drama at the theater. And once he’d almost…No, she wasn’t going to think about that. He was a danger she needed to stop, for Nigel’s sake and her own. Which meant, she needed to go to him.
The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection Page 72