“My lady?” Hill, her lady’s maid, prodded again in a tentative voice.
Leonora turned her head slightly, so Hill’s face was visible. She did not think herself capable of speech at the moment. “Mmm?”
It occurred to her then, to wonder why her lady’s maid was here in Searle’s chamber, and furthermore, to wonder where her husband was. Leonora was alone in his massive bed. Stifling a yawn, she stretched like a lazy cat sunning itself on a summer day.
And promptly realized she was nude.
Her cheeks heated.
“My lady, his lordship directed me to come here to you,” Hill said calmly, as though Leonora was not lying about in her husband’s bed, the rumpled bedclothes and her dishabille shameful evidence of what she had spent yesterday afternoon and evening doing.
Dear heavens, they had not even taken dinner. What must the servants think of her? What must Hill think of her?
“His lordship also indicated you would wish a bath, which I have drawn for you and perfumed with your favorite scent.”
A warm bath did sound divine, but there remained a great deal of questions which had gone unanswered.
Namely, where was his lordship? How long had she slept? When could she kiss him again?
With great effort, she forced her seemingly boneless body into a sitting position, holding the covers to her breasts as if they were a shield. Of course, she had been unclothed before her lady’s maid on innumerable occasions, but somehow this time seemed different.
It seemed wicked, even if it was not. Well, perhaps some of it had been wicked…
Her cheeks flamed all over again. “Where is his lordship, Hill?”
“I cannot say, my lady.” Hill’s countenance was expressionless as ever. “He sent for a carriage some time ago.”
The news pierced the delirious fog of lovemaking that had infected in her mind. Here she was, mooning over him, lolling about in his bed, and he had gone without so much as a word. Somehow, she had imagined today would be different than all the others that had come before it as the Marchioness of Searle.
But he had risen from her side, left quietly while she slept, and had already broken his fast and departed. Perhaps, she consoled herself, he had left a note. After all, he had directed Hill to find her here and draw her a bath.
“Did the marquess leave a missive behind for me?” she dared to ask, half afraid to hear the answer.
“No, my lady, his lordship did not.” Hill held up her dressing gown. “May I escort you to your bath now?”
Disappointment pricked her, mingling with hurt. Of course he had not. He had simply taken her maidenhead, availed himself of her body, and gone about his day as if nothing life altering had occurred. As if he had not spent the night bringing her the sort of pleasure she had not dreamed existed until now. As if he had not held her and kissed her, as if he had not been inside her, his touch so sure and powerful she could almost feel it upon her still. As if he had not left his mark upon her, a small bruise from his mouth she could see upon the curve of her left shoulder.
Why had she been foolish enough to believe one night would be enough to thaw the ice he wore around his heart? He had warned her what he wanted from her, had he not?
And it was not her heart. Not her at all. The solace he found in losing himself in her body—that was what he wanted from her. That was all he was willing to give.
Swallowing against a sudden surge of tears, she nodded at her lady’s maid. She must look a disaster this morning, lying abed as if she were a harlot, her curls tangled and twisted about her, wearing love bites and nothing else.
“Yes, Hill,” she managed. “I am ready for my bath.”
It would seem she would have to wage war with her husband if she wanted to break through his defenses. And she would have ample time to plot whilst she scrubbed all traces of him from her skin.
Chapter Seven
Morgan strode to his study upon his return to Linley House, nettled by his inconvenient attraction to his wife, which seemed to grow more boundless by the hour. He had fled that morning to be removed from her and the temptation she presented. But meeting his ne’er do well cousin, the Duke of Montrose, had not provided sufficient distraction. Neither had a bout of sparring with him. Monty possessed one hell of a punch, and Morgan’s jaw was still ringing with the pain of the blow he had suffered.
However, neither that nor the subsequent round of indolence they indulged in at the Duke’s Bastard seemed to do a damned thing to keep Morgan from thinking about his marchioness. He had been sporting a most inconvenient state of hardness for the entirety of the day, and though he had been doing his best to distract himself, he had discovered not even the dissolute companionship of Monty was enough to make him stop recalling how delicious it had felt to sink home inside Leonora for the first time.
Not even the painful fact he could ill afford to develop tender emotions toward her seemed to matter one whit to his body. The sounds she made, the responsiveness of her lush body, the shameless way she had followed his lead…
“Damnation,” he muttered to himself, slamming his study door with more force then necessary.
What was it about her?
In his old life, before he had purchased his commission and gone to war on the Continent, no woman had ever interested him the way Leonora did. This infatuation he had developed for his wife was ludicrous. Monty had urged him to take a mistress, and it was likely the only bit of advice he should have ever taken from his rakehell cousin. If he had, maybe he would not be so overwrought at this moment. So overwrought, in fact, he almost failed to see the blur of movement racing across the carpet and tucking itself beneath his desk. Almost, but not quite.
His frown and his black mood both growing, he stalked around the corner of his desk and peered beneath. Two bulging, warm brown eyes blinked at him. He caught sight of a pink tongue. Clipped ears.
By God, there was a bloody dog in his study. Beneath his desk. And a skittish one at that.
How in the name of Hades had a dog managed to find its way here?
The answer hit him in the same fashion the mere thought of his wife did, as a wallop straight to the chest. A visceral reaction he could neither like nor relinquish. There could be only one person who would dare to secret a mutt within his territory.
A mutt who, by the smell of things, had already desecrated said territory with a most impolite deposit. He had only been gone for mere hours, damn it all.
Growling, he turned and stalked from the room.
He located his butler first. “Huell,” he all but roared. “Have you any inkling of how a creature has managed to find its way into my study?”
Huell paled, the only indication he possessed a pulse. “There was an unfortunate incident in the kitchens. A small family of mice was recently discovered but eradicated instantaneously. It is possible one of the miscreants managed to escape.”
“Not a mouse,” he corrected, feeling grim. “A canine, Huell. A bloody dog with two ears and a tail and a slavering mouth and a foul stench. It is in my study.”
Huell blinked, his color leaching even further. “Forgive me, my lord. I do not know how such an event could have occurred. Shall I have it removed?”
Yes, Morgan wanted to snap.
But then, for a brief moment, those huge brown eyes returned to him, and he could not seem to form the word. Instead, he demanded something else of his butler. “Where might I find the Marchioness of Searle?”
“As you indicated your intention of dining at your club this evening, her ladyship is taking her dinner at the moment.”
“Excellent.” He stalked in the direction of the dining room.
“My lord, what shall be done with the canine?” Huell called after him.
“See that it is fed and walked,” he called over his shoulder. “And send a maid round to see to the mess the little devil has made upon the carpet.”
Morgan did not stop until he discovered his quarry at last, finishing her dinner alo
ne with a sole footman standing sentinel. She should have seemed a pitiful figure, dining by herself, but she was ever the regal, icy picture of beauty. She was a splinter lodged deep into his chest, and he could not seem to remove her, though she continued to make him bleed.
She had never been meant to be his torture, damn it, and that he allowed her to assume the role now, albeit against his will, infuriated him almost as much as being dragged halfway through Spain by a ragtag band of guerrilla soldiers had.
“You are dismissed,” he told the footman without bothering to glance in the fellow’s direction.
Being a wise man, the servant fled.
Leonora’s gaze settled upon Morgan, her expression placid and unconcerned. She was dressed to perfection, her glorious hair in a chignon with ringlets framing her angelic face. Her gown was a deep, claret red, offsetting her porcelain skin and her bright eyes and sultry lips. She personified the fusion of the palely beautiful wallflower he had first met with the lush, unbridled wanton who had set his body aflame last night. A perfect fallen angel. His fallen angel, and he would torment her more than she could ever imagine before he was finished.
But for now, he was struck anew by the force of her loveliness. If he had been a painter, he would have been driven to capture her on canvas, thus, this moment, innocence and seduction all at once. The odd, unwanted thought she ought to be wearing the Searle rubies at her throat and ears hit him then, leaving him momentarily bereft. He envisioned her wearing nothing but the glittering gems, and his mouth went dry.
“Lady Searle.” He addressed her formally, because she was staring at him expectantly, and everything inside him was a confusing riot. He could not look upon her now without recalling the exquisite taste of her upon his tongue, without recalling how she had gripped him, without hearing the sudden throatiness in her voice when she had said my cunny is yours.
Sweet Lord. He could not think of one single thing to say beyond her name. Why had he sought her out anyway? Why did he stand before her now? His mind had been robbed of everything but a sudden, gripping appreciation for this woman.
“Lord Searle.” She lifted her fork to her lips, and damn him if he was not envious of the silver tines of that utensil. “Have you dined?”
“Yes.” Rather, he had imbibed. The Duke’s Bastard possessed a legendary chef, but he and Monty had been too intent upon the priceless whisky cache to bother themselves with velouté.
“Then why, may I ask, are you here?” she queried calmly.
So calmly, he was certain he had misheard her. He stood there for a full minute at least, gazing upon her as if seeing her for the first time. And then he realized she, the half-sister of the man who had nearly gotten him killed, the woman who was to be his implement of revenge, his wife of one sennight, was asking him why he was standing in his own goddamned dining room.
He swallowed, recalling his rage, a far more fitting armor than lust. Recalling, quite belatedly, his reason for being here. The bloody dog. He would show her. Surely Huell could not have removed the creature already.
He sketched an elegant, ironic bow and held out his hand. “Come with me, my lady.”
She chewed slowly before raising a snowy napkin to her lips and gently dabbing. “I beg your pardon, my lord. As you can see, I am currently otherwise engaged.”
“The chicken fricassee can go to hell for all I care.”
Appearing singularly unconcerned, she took another bite of her dinner. For some entirely inexplicable reason, watching Leonora eat made him harder than a fire poker. There he stood, watching her lips, mollified by a glimpse of her pretty pink tongue glancing over the seam of her mouth. Imagining taking that mouth and ravaging it with his own.
This would not do.
She had planted an interloper in his territory, and now he could not even think of anything but kissing her. Taking her in his arms, swiping away the china and cutlery, and settling her rump upon the table linens. Making her his feast. Licking her to submission as he should have last night. As he would have had he not been so lost in his need of her that he had been driven to a near desperate state.
No, by God, this would not do at all.
“I am rather enjoying the chicken fricassee, Searle,” his wife said with a bright smile, bringing another bite of the dish to her lips.
“There is a mongrel in my study, my lady,” he gritted. “And unless my nose is mistaken, I believe it has befouled the carpet.”
She took her blessed time chewing before swallowing slowly, then taking a sip of her wine as he looked on, impotent and furious. One more delicate dab of the linen square to the corner of her lips. And then she licked them.
His cock twitched.
“Julius Caesar,” she said calmly.
He stared at her, confounded, and said the first thing that came to mind. “Hamlet.”
His lovely wife’s brows knitted into the perfect frown. “Hamlet is a dreadful name for your new dog, Searle.”
What the devil?
He blinked, his rancor momentarily melting away. This woman confused him. Confounded him. “I thought we were naming Shakespeare’s plays. I most assuredly do not have a dog.”
She forked up another bite of chicken, closing her eyes as if in ecstasy. “My heavens, you have my gratitude for hiring Monsieur Talleyrand as chef. This is exquisite.”
He forced all unwanted lust aside, grinding his molars together and taking a deep breath.
“Perhaps you did not hear me, so I shall elucidate, my lady,” he said, trying again. “I do not have a dog.”
“Correction, Searle.” She gave him a benign smile that somehow served to spur his lust anew. “You do have a dog now, and his name is Julius Caesar.”
Perhaps he had married a Bedlamite. She shared blood with the Earl of Rayne, after all, and if anyone’s blood was tainted with madness, it was that sinister bastard. Regardless, he was hovering over his wife as if he were an uninvited guest, watching her eat dinner. He ought to sit in the presence of a lady, and he knew it, but somehow could not force himself to do so.
Meanwhile, there was a creature running wild in his study, shitting all over his carpet and lord knew what else. The creature had been obtained by her; he had no doubt. And she had named it the most ludicrous name in the history of canine-kind.
“I do not have a dog,” he corrected her grimly. “I have an infestation. A trespasser. An unwanted hairy, slavering beast who is ruining my study as we speak.”
“Dogs are great sources of comfort,” she said simply.
And all the heat within him turned to ice. Fiery ice. The need to obliterate and destroy, the hunger for retribution that had never been far from his mind, rose, strong and ravaging and voracious.
“We have been through this unwarranted and unwelcome subject before, my lady.” He slammed his palms down on the table with so much force the china upon it clinked and jumped. And then, he lowered his head until they were eye to eye. “I do not require comfort, madam.”
Damn her, she had not even flinched. She stared at him, her expression as placid as the lake at Westmore Manor, his country seat. Her white-blonde hair and effortless grace, coupled with her determination to remain unperturbed, made her seem all the more ethereal.
And he was all the more determined to break her.
“Yes,” she argued with him, her tone calm and measured. Almost mild. Certainly mellifluous. “You do, my lord.”
“Do not begin to imagine you have any inkling of what I need,” he growled, his hands fisted on the table.
Because what he needed had nothing to do with a canine interloper and everything to do with her. He wanted to pummel something. To smash and destroy. To shock her. Perhaps even to frighten her. What he wanted more than anything was to wreck, to ruin her until she was as blackened and dead on the inside as he was, like the remnants of a fire in the grate, nothing but ash.
“You are suffering from nightmares, my lord.” She raised a brow, then returned her attention to her plate, a
s if she had said everything she needed to say.
Yes, he suffered, as would any man who had endured what he had, at the mercy of an enemy that had proved incredibly merciless. He had been abused in more ways than he wished to ever acknowledge or relive. The indignities he had suffered still had the power to make him retch.
But that was neither here nor there.
How the devil could she sit there and be so calm when he was raging? The calmer she remained, the more irate he became. He would never, for as long as he suffered the indignity of walking the earth, understand the beautiful creature before him. Nor the power she had over him. The power to make him weak. To make him forget his every reason for making her his in the first place.
“I am suffering from nothing, and I do not want or need the dog. I demand you have it removed from my study.” He pounded his fists in punctuation.
“You are suffering from something, Searle.” She forked up another bite of chicken, chewing it as if she hadn’t a care. As if she were facing him over a dinner party rather than after having thrown down the gauntlet. “He does have a name, you know. Julius Caesar is yours, and I will not be requesting his removal.”
To perdition with her and this canine nonsense, and this Julius bloody Caesar which had shat itself in Morgan’s study. Which had cowered beneath his desk. Which had been removed by the clever and careful Huell, a man who may not always approve of Morgan, but who was blessed with the capacity to perform his duties effortlessly and without asking a single question.
“I am suffering from a wife who does not know her place,” he countered. “Come with me, and I shall show you where you belong.”
Her lips compressed. “I belong here, finishing my dinner. You, my lord, belong in your study, tending to Julius Caesar before he makes a complete muddle of your carpet. Though from what I understand, the precious little fellow already knows how to behave properly. Perhaps you terrified him and that is the reason for his lapse of propriety.”
Had she just referred to a mutt shitting on his study Aubusson as a lapse of propriety? Yes, the minx damn well had.
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