She stared at him levelly. "I find that hard to believe. Most men want a wife who can share their burdens with them in some way."
He glared at her, his silvery eyes cold and forbidding. "I would be nursing a viper in my bosom. You'd betray me as you did every other man who has ever had the misfortune to like or trust you."
She blinked, getting more and more clues as to his innermost feelings and reasons for them. "Betray? But if I'm a harlot, it's surely a simple monetary transaction. A commercial relationship only. There are no feeling involved, no commitment.
"As for the word like, I wonder at you using it when you would appear to have nothing but contempt for me. Indeed, you view me as little better than an African slave bought off an auction block. Even they are allowed to wear a dress. Shall I shred my petticoat and fashion a halter for my neck so you can tie me up at the next hitching post?"
"So you enjoy bondage, do you?" he said gruffly, both disgusted and excited.
She could guess vaguely what he meant. "No, I don't. How can I enjoy any of the cruelties you inflict upon me? Thus far they have been only mental, but they are often the unkindest of all. If you want to beat me, just have done with it so I need not keep fearing it."
"Beat you?" he gasped. "No-" He stared at her, and saw she was in earnest. He scowled, and suppressed a shudder.
Juliet sat calmly gazing at him, and once again Lawrence felt as though she had bested him in some indefinable way. Now it was he who felt as though he had been beaten.
Just what on earth was wrong with him? Ever since he had met her his world seemed to have spun out of control.
He banged on the back of the coach with his fist, startling her. "Stop at the next inn for some dinner," he called up to the driver.
She sat huddled in the seat until he said gruffly, "Pray put your clothes on. It is a grey day and that cloak does not cover you sufficiently."
"Thank you."
Heedless of modesty at this point, she obeyed with alacrity. He averted his gaze, at least for a time. He had missed her lush body in the bed beside him last night, and was feeling decidedly needy as he watched her dress. He would have thought their afternoon in the coach would have sated him, but he had been up half the night and more than once had lifted the latch to find her.
But he had not ascertained where she was in the inn, and was not about to wake the place by searching for his wife. In the end he had got about an hour's sleep, awakened in a fierce temper, and roused the whole household for breakfast so he could find his wife at last.
Now as they pulled in Lawrence thought about breaking their journey there for the night, simply bedding down with her until he could sleep at last, and pressing on to Somerset in the morning.
But he told himself he had to get back to business in both Bristol and London, trying to forget that he should have been on honeymoon with Matilda by now. The word honeymoon conjured up all sorts of erotic possibilities which he did not dare think about. Not if he was going to continue on that day.
He looked at Juliet as she remained where she was in the coach.
"Are you not hungry, Madam?" he asked with a frown.
"I wasn't sure I was invited to come."
"I don't appreciate your sarcasm."
"Nor do I appreciate yours."
He shrugged. "Suit yourself. Come or stay there as you please."
"Can you have something sent out to me?" she asked softly.
He turned back toward her impatiently. "Why put them to the trouble? Why not just come in?"
"Because I look so bedraggled, I wouldn't want to shame you. I am after all only a bitch in heat you found by the side of the road."
The words he had used the night before hit him hard. Furious with himself and her, Lawrence strode away and left her sitting alone in the freezing coach.
She waited for a time for some food to arrive, but when none was forthcoming, she wiped away a few self-pitying tears, and slipped out to avail herself of the shrubbery.
He returned a short time later with the driver and resumed his seat, and the coach rolled on. She did not dare ask him what had happened, and the smell of brandy was so strong upon him she quailed. Men were often even more bad-tempered and violent when drunk.
Lawrence had lost his appetite at her words, and the brandy he had ordered for himself had been most vile. So vile in fact that he had dropped the glass after the first taste, sloshing it all over his coat.
When the landlord had insisted he would pour him another Lawrence had waved him away, and mopped his lapels as best he could with his pocket handkerchief.
After a trip to the chamberpot he had dragged the driver away from his beer and beef, and insisted they were leaving.
Juliet had no idea how she was going to endure the hell of having to share the confined space with him once more. Though freezing and half-starved, at least him taking a dinner break would have offered her a brief respite to consider her options. To be away from his arctic gaze.
But the motions of the coach soon rocked her to sleep despite all of her best efforts to stay awake. She started as she felt his arms go around her.
She tried to pull away.
His deep voice rasped in her ear, "Easy. I'm not going to futter you. Just go back to sleep."
He slid over and wedged himself in the corner, and pulled her over to his side. She was stiff and unyielding against him at first, but as she heard his deep, even breathing, and knew he was slumbering, she relaxed and dropped off to sleep once more.
CHAPTER TWELVE
When Lawrence opened his eyes a couple of hours later, the coach was slowing. He craned his neck to look out the window, and saw a goodly inn in the distance.
He decided if they were going to sleep, they might as well do it in a half-decent bed. Juliet looked just about done in, her porcelain skin almost transparent as he gazed down at her. He had never seen a more lovely sight in his life.
Of course, it was her stock and trade to look beautiful, but he was sure she was asleep. Even his hands upon her in a more and more suggestive manner did not awaken her. She shivered but was still.
"Juliet? Juliet?"
Still there was no sign of her wakening. He was about to shake her roughly when he decided what was the point. It would be like kicking a kitten. She couldn't help what she had become any more than he could. They had been molded by circumstances and fate. Both of them had ended up hard people of the world.
He wondered what she dreamed about. Pretty dresses, more male conquests? Or something more simple? A decent home, family? What fantasies had led her to be part of the demi monde when she had been born to the haut monde? And how could her brother have prostituted such a delicate little flower just further his own ambitions? For surely she must have been the most adorable and trusting little girl once upon a time. Or had she always been sly and cunning, a natural little flirt?
He had no idea, and didn't want to find out. All he wanted now was a bed, hot meal and a few hours of mindless oblivion between her thighs. Since he was stuck with her, he might as well enjoy her.
He shook her awake, and half-carried, half-dragged her out of the coach.
"Wha- What is it?" she gasped, her eyes flying wide with alarm.
"We're stopping here for dinner and the night." He let go of her so abruptly, she almost fell. He reached out one hand to steady her.
"Thank you. All right."
The driver and she both looked at each other in surprise but followed him as he strode into the inn. "A room. Bring the luggage and the dinner in an hour. And a bath in two."
As soon as they were behind closed doors in their plainly furnished, long, low-beamed chamber, he yanked at the ties of her cloak and began to remove her clothing with an intentness which indicated his desires all too plainly.
"Lawrence, what on earth-"
Her hands came up to shield herself, but he brushed them aside impatiently and continued to unbutton the front of her frock and then her chemise.
"
Lawrence, please. What are you-"
He simply laughed, a harsh sound which grated on her every nerve. "You really do play the innocent so well. But I'm in the mood for a few other games."
"Please, stop a moment," she begged, taking a step away from his questing hands. "At least let me take off my own clothes and use the chamberpot. And I haven't had a bath since we left London. Nor more than a bite to eat."
He paused at that. "What do you mean?"
She stiffened and said quietly, "You know full well what I mean."
"I wouldn't be asking if I did!" he barked.
"This is yet another game of yours, isn't it?" she hissed, managing to break free of his grasp. She scurried behind the screen in the corner.
"I'm not playing any game! I haven't time."
"Then why are we here?" she asked.
"Because I thought it would be more comfortable sleeping in a bed than the coach seat. And we need to eat."
"I see."
She hurriedly tended to her needs, then quickly poured some warm water from the pitcher into the ewer. She washed her hands and face, grateful for the warm water. But she could hardly relax and refresh herself as she longed to. She hated the fact that he was just on the other side of the screen seething and could overhear everything she was doing.
See it too if he came close enough. She had put up with a lot of shaming in the past two days, but performing her bodily functions in front of him really was the last straw.
As he continued to pace on the other side of the screen, she nearly lost her normally placid temper. She stepped out from behind the screen to face him, and began to yank off all her garments.
"I've had no food or fire since the day we married, and no bath to soothe my aching limbs after being jarred up and down for days on the road. So if you want to bed a corpse, I shall just lie down now. With any luck I shall expire shortly and you shall have all you've ever wished.
"In fact, if I snuff it quickly you can hurry back to London. You might just get Matilda to forgive you, and your honeymoon plans can continue apace."
"Now you're being melodramatic," he growled.
"Am I? Just do me a favour when you're finished with me? Leave them enough coins so I don't have to be buried in Potter's Field?"
He glared at her. "God, wench, you would try the patience of a saint."
"Which we all know you most certainly are not," she said with a shake of her head.
"Nor are you!" he fired back.
"But I wouldn't treat a stray bitch the way you have me! So which one of us is worse?"
His words coming back to him like a slap were enough to make him relent in his anger.
Lawrence took a deep breath and tried again "Please tell me one thing, truthfully, without flying off the handle?"
"Yes, if I can," she agreed warily.
"Why have you not eaten? Are you sick? I mean, surely it can't be a baby-"
"No, I'm not sick," she sighed, shaking her head. She moved over to perch on the arm rest of one of the low wooden chairs by the table. "As for a baby it's far too early to tell, as you well know. The reason I haven't eaten, nor had even the most basic human comforts, Lawrence, is that you haven't bothered to make any provision for me.
"You ordered what you wanted last night at the inn, and made no mention of me. I was the stray cur, remember? You had breakfast this morning, then had me dragged out of bed while you waited to leave. I barely had enough time to take my ease, let alone breakfast. I had no dinner. You left me sitting in the carriage and had nothing sent out. So when do you think I could have eaten? Or bathed, or had a warm fire?"
He stared at her as if she were speaking a foreign tongue. But she was right. He had neglected her most shamefully. And she had taken the punishing treatment because he had told her she could expect no better.
He turned on his heel and marched to the door, and shouted so loudly the rafters shook. She dived behind the screen and peeped out.
A manservant appeared and bowed nervously, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "Food and bath now. Bring whatever you have, it makes no difference. My wife is hungry. I'll come downstairs to dine."
He slammed out of the room, leaving her alone at last. Hardly believing her luck, she scurried over to the door and locked it. She availed herself of the chamberpot more completely, got rid of the slops into the bucket, and washed her hands again.
A maid coming with the food tray a short time later took the slops away and left her with more hot water. She huddled in her cloak by the fire as she waited for the servants to fill the tub.
A mountain of food appeared a short time later, roast beef with dripping and potatoes, bread, cheese, chicken, ham. She ate her fill, but also had the foresight to wrap some of the food in a cloth.
Her new husband was being nice to her at present, but that was not to say it was going to last. And knowing him, he might have some even more inventive cruelties in mind.
Juliet was certain he did later that evening, when bathed, and replete with food, she put on her chemise and slipped between the newly warmed covers, complete with hotwater bottles as well. She sighed, and finally began to relax.
There had still been no sign of him since their arrival, and she supposed he had secured a chamber for himself and would not be seeing her again until morning. Well, at least she would have all the food she had placed in her reticule for breakfast if Lawrence decided to make another precipitate dash for the road.
She stretched out on the bed, exhausted, and was just about to drift off to sleep when she heard the latch lift. Her husband was in his dressing gown, and slipped in beside her in the bed despite her alarmed expression and stiff posture.
"I just wanted to say, well, I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" she whispered.
"About you being neglected. I'm not used to having a wife to cater for. I just go where I want, do what I want, with no reference to anyone else."
She shrugged. "I can't expect you to change your whole life for me."
"Not all at once, no. But enough to realise that a lady likes her privacy, and even a fallen woman needs to eat. She moved away from him at once. "Please, don't start on me again."
"I didn't mean to. Slave then, even a slave needs to eat."
She looked daggers at him. "Somehow you always manage to come up with just the right thing to say to make it hurt even more."
"Then let's just not talk at all. Lie down."
"Sit, stay, roll over, beg. Back to the bitch, now are we?" she sighed.
His gaze devoured her beauty. "Aye," he said, hating himself for his desperate need to control her. "Let's just see about the in heat part."
Lawrence kissed her blisteringly, shocking her to the core. Wildfire flooded through her as his lips seemed to suck her very soul from her body, and with it any defiance she might have flung back in his face.
Before she even realised it, her hands had parted his dressing gown and were stroking down his supple steely muscles. The taste and smell of him fresh out of the bath was almost more than she could bear.
She dragged her mouth away from his. He was about to grasp her head to renew the contact when her mouth began to work its way down the strong column of his throat. From there it roved over his chest, down his abdomen, and from there even lower. The glory of him naked in bed beside her as he had been that first fateful night set her senses soaring.
His hand stroked her ears and cheek and shoulders, and only when she came to the very seat of his desire did he stop her with a shake of his head, raising her and rolling her onto her back.
The prospect of being in her mouth was just too exciting to bear, and he would never expect his wife to do it, much as it thrilled him.
She spread her legs to welcome him, but she was so tight with need she was not sure he was going to be able to manage. She half-expected the stroke to be instantaneous.
But his huge hands gentled over her stomach, until with agonising slowness one nestled between her thighs. Heat flooded th
rough her as he brushed her lightly, touching her most intimately as he spread her dew and began to lightly caress her pearl of pleasure.
One mouth on her breast was enough to make her almost beg for him to take her, but as if sensing her impatience he whispered against her skin, "We have all night. All night for nothing but this dance between us. Just let it happen."
He began to kiss downwards. Juliet tried not to cover herself in shame or tense up. He was being more than kind to her.
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 5 Page 14