"Was it him you saw in the crowd that day?"
Every word she said to him was the absolute truth. She had wondered the same thing herself, but didn't say that. "I don't know."
"Have you seen him since we've been here?"
Mari could see the toll his questions were taking on him, see the strain of the situation around his eyes and in the hard set of his jaw. "I saw him in the audience at the theatre several nights ago. He was with Lucinda, the woman who became his fiancé after…" She paused for barely a second. "After our betrothal was broken." She didn't want to, but she thought she ought to tell him everything. "She found me having tea at O'Reilly's a day or so ago, asking me to talk to Evan. I refused."
"Talk to him? About what?"
Mari sighed at what a morass this was becoming. "She asked me to see him and reaffirm to him that we were no longer together. It seems he got the notion that I needed to be rescued."
"Rescued?" His already dark frown deepened. "From what?"
Mari stared at the beautiful carpet beneath her feet. "From you."
Con took a step towards her, lifting her chin with his fingers. Light blue eyes met dark, troubled ones. "And where might he have gotten such an idea?"
Tears spilled down Mari's cheeks as she answered shakily, "From me." It took everything she had not to crumple to the ground in front of him, but she didn't. She wasn't sure where the impulse to throw herself at his feet and beg him for some sort of absolution came from, but she very nearly heeded it.
"And just what did you say to him—and more importantly, when did you say it?"
She could no more have stopped herself from clutching at his hand than she could have stopped the snow from melting in the spring. "Please. You have to believe me. I said something very damning of you in his eyes—in the dramatic way I might have then, since I was feeling very put upon at the time." She swallowed hard. "I told him—the same day that our engagement was called off—that I would rather die than be with a man like you. But I didn't mean it!" she sobbed. "I was just hysterical at the prospect of not getting what I wanted and of having to marry a man I didn't know. Y-you have helped me not to do that anymore—much more than either of my parents ever did. They just gave in and gave me what I wanted. I don't think that idea would ever enter your mind."
He didn't smile at her teasing the way she wished he would.
"Are you having an affair with Evan Holyoake, Mari? Tell me the truth."
She squeezed his hand. "I've been telling you the truth all along. I've just admitted things to you that I am deeply ashamed of."
His eyebrow rose, and she realized that she hadn't answered his question. "No," she ground out. "I am not having an affair with Evan."
Suddenly, his hand was gone from hers and she found the chemise she was standing in ripped from top to bottom, her drawers treated in much the same fashion before he lifted her against him, spreading her legs around his waist and sheathing himself in her violently.
Mari was a bit drier than usual, but his aggressive entry still sent sparks flying all over her body, but mostly concentrated right where he was.
He held her like that and claimed her, giving in to the more primitive urges he was feeling, finding the nearest wall with which to give himself leverage, his eyes never leaving hers.
As he fucked her with everything he had, banging her against the unyielding wall, trapping her between two very hard places, Con brought the two of them closer and closer to what were terribly mindless climaxes that would leave Mari with bruises for days afterwards.
As those familiar, but different every time, sensations stole over him, he ground out between clenched teeth, "I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Marielle DeVane Wetherby. You are mine, and no one else's."
She sent him into orbit by bringing a hand up to cup his cheek as she repeated his own words back to him in that soft, sweet voice of hers. "I am yours, and no one else's, Con."
It was early morning, on an island that someone her husband knew privately owned. Mari shivered in the pre-dawn moist air, unable to imagine that she was actually here, facing the prospect of losing her husband—or, more likely—a man she'd known and cared about and been infatuated with, since she was a child.
She'd been unable to convince Con not to go ahead with this, and it was all arranged with terrifying speed and with the utmost secrecy, because it was, indeed, illegal. When she'd exhausted her attempts to convince him, she'd gotten in touch with Lucinda and had told her that she needed her to persuade Evan.
"They can't duel—especially not with swords. My husband is an expert with them and Evan stands no chance at all against him. He'll end up dead."
Lucinda's face blanched as white as Mari's had been, starting out. She shrugged her shoulders. "Then he's going to die, because he's not going to listen to me. I don't even think he'd listen to you, at this point. He's too far gone for that."
Mari could well understand that, considering the wild look in Evan's eye when he'd appeared in their rooms. "I am not going to see him. I can't, and I won't. I won't give my husband any more cause to doubt me than he already has."
So here they were. Their seconds gave them their blades—Evan's sparkling and obviously new, Con's old and well worn.
That should have told Evan something right there, but of course, it didn't. Had she been that blind herself about her husband? She knew the answer before she'd asked the question.
Neither she nor Lucinda—neither of whom were supposed to be there, technically—were allowed to get very close to the combatants, but they could hear what was being said.
A neutral, disinterested third party held the tips of their blades together in one gloved hand. "This is a fight to first blood, not to death, gentlemen. Are you ready?"
Each of the men nodded solemnly, and he released the blades, saying, "En garde."
Then Con did something no one expected, least of all Evan. As he met the other man's eyes, he lowered his blade, giving Evan a clear path to draw blood.
Only the younger man was so excited and full of adrenaline that he didn't—or couldn't—control his thrust, and instead of merely nicking Con on his arm as he should have, he ran him through his left side until the hilt of the blade was against the older man's stomach, then drew it out again.
Con didn't immediately fall to the ground but gave his rival for his wife's affections a surprised look, saying simply, "She will always be mine," before he collapsed.
Mari couldn't believe her eyes, and she broke away from Danvers' hold to run to her husband, taking his head in her lap and screaming at Evan. "What have you done? He'd capitulated so that you could win. He wasn't going to fight you, you bastard!"
Evan looked confused at the venom in her tone. "But—But I was rescuing you—taking you away from a man you hate. We can be together now..." his voice trailed off as he saw the tears trailing down Mari's cheeks, and Lucinda hugged him from behind. He turned to her, to anyone who would listen. "I was just doing my duty—helping her. She told me before they were married that she couldn't live with him..."
His second finally dragged him away, and gendarmes arrived not too much later to take him to jail.
Luckily, someone had the presence of mind to have a doctor on the field who also rushed to Con's side. Mari did her best to stay out of the man's way, but she refused to leave his side.
At one point, Con, who was white as a sheet and obviously in terrible pain, looked up at her, taking her hand and squeezing it, breathing with obvious difficulty, "You ran to me, not Evan."
Mari answered, through tears that were dripping onto his agonized face. "Of course, I did. I'm yours, aren't I?"
Con smiled bravely but briefly, then fainted as Mari watched what looked like the life draining from his body and wailed.
It was touch and go there for a long while. Con became very ill, having contracted an infection that the doctors worried would attack his heart or his brain. His fever was high, his body weak and wasting away from it.
Through it all, Mari never once left his side, even when she probably should have. She learned the nurse's routines and mimicked them, to the point where they began to trust her to do things that they would normally have done themselves. Mari found she had a knack for taking care of him, and indeed, even the staff commented that he was calmer and quieter when she was in the room with him.
She learned to give him a bed bath, change his dressings and turn him occasionally to prevent bedsores, although, at first, that was a four-person job. Unfortunately, it became less so the longer he was ill.
The struggle seemed endless, until one morning when she lay asleep in the uncomfortable chair beside his bed, her hand holding his, as was her habit, and a nurse came in to check on him, feeling his forehead, then running for the doctor.
Mari didn't even awaken until the man finally patted her arm.
"Milady, milady," he said firmly.
"What? Is he worse? What can I do to help?" she asked.
The kindly white-haired man smiled down at her gently. "You've done more than anyone else in this hospital to ensure his recovery, and our prayers have been answered. His fever has broken." He actually brought her hand to her husband's forehead, as if he thought she might not believe him.
And it was blessedly cool beneath her fingertips, for the first time in more long weeks than she wanted to think about. Her life had shrunk to the four walls of this hospital room. She hadn't been back to the hotel since he was brought here. Somehow, it had seemed disloyal to go back there without him.
Although they all tried to convince her that the worst was over and that she should go and get some real sleep, she still refused to leave him. Later that morning, as she was giving him a sponge bath, his eyes opened.
"Mari?" he croaked.
She nearly dropped the pan of water she was using, but managed to set it safely aside instead, returning to lean over him, his hand in hers. "Con! You're back with us!"
"Where did I go?" he asked, confused.
"You didn't go anywhere," she soothed. "You were very sick."
His eyes looked cloudy for a long moment, and then he said, with great effort, "The duel."
"Yes. Evan—well, Evan acted dishonorably. You were so brave, Con, so terribly brave."
He smiled weakly. "I don't know about that. I was hoping that giving him the satisfaction he wanted would preserve his honor for him, give him a feeling of having accomplished something to nick me. I didn't know…"
"No one did—I don't think anyone could. I clung to my fantasies about him for much too long, but he spun them into something they weren't, into some sort of need to avenge me. I didn't ask him to do that, Con. I didn't."
He nodded slowly. "I understand. I believe you."
Mari felt as if some sort of emotional bubble had burst within her, and her tears flowed even more copiously as she stroked his hair. "I am yours, Con, no one else's."
"I know," he sighed, sinking back into a more normal, less troubled sleep than he had since he'd been brought there.
When he was stronger, Mari decided that he should convalesce at home rather than in France, and she did everything necessary to arrange as quiet and careful a trip for him as she could manage.
They sailed on the Titan again, and Captain Lawson said he'd do his best, too, to see that the seas weren't too rough on him.
It was such a strange turnabout to be back in that cabin with him again. Only this time, he was flat on his back and weak as a kitten and railing against both things.
Mari did her best to keep him as quiet as the doctors had said he needed to stay, in order to heal, but he was far from the best patient and gave her quite a struggle.
When they arrived at his ancestral home for the first time, she accompanied him in through the hall, where the servants were lined up at attention much like the sailors had been on the ship they'd just left. He was brought up to his bed room, and the nurse she had interviewed and hired was there to see to him, although Mari had made it very clear that she was never to be shooed away from him as some of the candidates she'd interviewed had suggested she should be. She had participated unflinchingly in his care from the first, and she wasn't about to stop now.
She was sitting on the edge of his bed one afternoon, feeding him his lunch, when she saw that old spark back in his eyes as he looked at her. He was—according to his nurse and the doctors she'd had come from London to evaluate him—progressing very well indeed. They'd given her a few suggestions about changing his routine a bit and had suggested that he might benefit from a bit more physical activity—to be eased into, for certain, but that he could at least begin to recover more actively than he had been.
Mari was proving to be a bit of a mother hen, though, and she worried about straining him too much. Truth be told, she wasn't at all sure she could survive seeing him being that sick again. He'd nearly died, and she had already acknowledged to herself that, if he had, he would have taken her heart with him.
She loved him. She wasn't quite sure how it had happened, considering his low opinion of her and the fact that he got a perverse pleasure in spanking her, but then he also got just as much pleasure from bringing her to paradise, so she guessed it balanced out. What she felt for Con made what she had thought she felt for Evan pale in comparison, and she finally recognized what that had been for what it actually was—puppy love. A crush, comprised of what were, at the time, very deep, very new feelings that she had allowed to overrun her.
Con—her love for him was much more mature, more grounded—much like him. She would probably always be flighty and impulsive, but he was as steady as a rock, and she needed that.
She needed him.
Mari didn't think she'd ever get over the horror she'd felt when she'd seen Evan run him through with that sword. It had made her blood run cold, and she didn't think it had warmed up until he'd awakened and looked up at her so lovingly from his sickbed.
Then she caught her husband's mischievous look as she brought the spoon to his mouth. "What?"
He chuckled, if softly. Belly laughs were out of the question for a while.
Mari gave him a calculated look, then teased, "You're enjoying this entirely too much, Wetherby."
He looked wholly unrepentant. "I enjoy having you take care of me. I'll take any excuse for you to be close to me." His hand covered hers, but she pulled hers away, making him frown.
"All right then. I know you can feed yourself." She handed him the spoon and left the tray where it was on his lap to resume her seat next to him.
"I can, but I have to say I prefer having you do it. The view is much, much prettier."
As soon as he began to feel better, he started saying things like this to her again, making her blush as if he hadn't felt her spasm in his mouth, hadn't seen her writhing in the agonized pleasure he brought to her so effortlessly.
She was warm and loving and caring, but somehow distant from him, in a way he couldn't yet fathom but didn't intend to tolerate. He'd had occasion—many more than one—to watch how competent and efficient she had become in doing everything—even the more squeamish parts—of helping him recover, and his admiration for her soared. He'd known there was more to her than just the spoiled rich girl who flitted from party to party and wanted to marry the boy next door.
She'd come into her own, largely without him, he realized. He was there, but he was far from an active participant in her growth. Still, he was proud of her, proud to have been any part of it at all.
And yet, when he hinted at any kind of physical intimacy, she didn't balk, exactly, but the response he had come to expect from her—reluctant or not—simply wasn't there. He wondered what he'd done, or what had happened, but he was determined to get them back on the right path as soon as possible.
Along those lines, he ate everything that was presented to him and then some, met every goal the doctor set for him, pushing himself to get better as soon as was humanly possible. Mari needed him—she might not quite realize it, but
she did—and he was going to be there for her.
He was going to be her husband again, not just some invalid she took care of, however splendidly.
As a result of his—of their efforts—he was gaining weight back that he had lost, although his strength was much slower to return, and he sometimes got frustrated because of it. At first, he was weak as a babe—he had tried, days after he'd woken up, to keep Mari at his side when she had something else to do, and he realized that he physically couldn't manage to keep a hold of her hand enough to exert his influence over her physically.
He wasn't at all used to that. His body had never been quite so decimated before, and he wasn't at all used to it failing him completely.
But now, she was leaning forward in the chair, saying something to the effect that she needed to go and get some linens with which to change his bed, and he decided to test himself again, catching her as she rose from the chair and encircling her wrist with his fingers.
Startled, she looked down at his hand where it had captured hers and then up at him. ""Con, I really need to…"
He interrupted her quite rudely. "I don't care what you need to do. I need you to stretch out next to me and let me touch you."
She knew what he meant and blushed wildly at his audacity. "But Nurse Headley might return at any moment."
"She's gone to town for lunch—I heard her mention it as she was leaving," he informed her stubbornly. "Do I need to remind you to obey me, wife?" he asked, using that demanding tone of his with her for the first time in a long time, now that he felt that he had the ability to back it up, finally.
Mari tested his grip and found she could no longer ignore it and did as he asked, attempting to unfurl herself along his uninjured side until he whispered, "No, lie against my left side. I want to touch you with my right hand."
"But I don't want to hurt you," she said with a frown.
But he was remorseless. "Then you'll just have to not jostle me, won't you? Which means you'll have to remain still, no matter what I do to you." He was much less delicate than she liked to think of him as, and he'd chafed against that, until he'd just had the brilliant idea of using it against her to get his way, instead.
Man and Wife: A Sweet Historical Love Story Page 9