“I made promises to you once. I shan’t do so again.”
Edward snorted as he sawed through the rope at her ankles. “You had no intention of ever obeying me. Or honoring me or loving me. Our marriage was based on the flimsiest of foundations. It’s time we set ourselves on a different path. We’re older now, wiser.”
“La la la,” said Caroline. If her hands were free, she’d stick her fingers in her ears.
“You will listen to me. I’ll make you.”
“Do you intend to keep me a prisoner? For how long, Edward? How did you wriggle out of your duties to the king’s business anyway? I thought all peers had to be present in Parliament for the Bill of Pain and Penalties.” A Bill of Pain and Penalties indeed! If her hands were not still tied, Edward would feel the full weight of her wrath as lead crystal rained down on his head. She had exceptional aim from years of practice. “I’ll show you pain, my lord, and you’ve not begun to pay the penalty for kidnapping me.”
“See here, Caro. I haven’t harmed a hair on your head, although it could do with a good brushing.”
“I’ve been drugged! Blindfolded! Tied up, threatened, and scared out of my wits!”
Edward cleared his throat. It must have discomfited him to talk in such a villainous, ungrammatical way. “It was necessary. I know you too well.” He avoided her feeble kick and moved up to her wrists.
“You don’t know me! You know nothing! And I hope the king throws you in jail, if not for kidnapping me, then for leaving the trial.”
“He won’t. I told him I had a death in the family.”
“Yours, I hope, because I am going to kill you!”
Edward put the knife back in his pocket. “Really, Caro, now who is threatening whom? If you want to be untied, you’ll have to change your tune.”
“This is unconscionable. You know I have to—oh, good Lord. Please hurry, Edward. I won’t do anything.” For now. But as she said, she’d make no more promises to him.
Chapter 17
“I am not afraid,” Tatiana brazened. “Do your worst, my lord.” His obsidian eyes glittered as brightly as the knife he held.
—Lord Lancaster’s Lady
Despite her shrieking, the fiend had tied her right back up again. He left off the blindfold and gag, removing the dark cloak before he set her back on the bed. He dragged out a large copper tub from the adjoining room, then paraded back and forth shirtless with pitchers of steaming hot water. The sheen of perspiration on his muscled torso was quite gratifying, but she was not about to express any admiration. No matter what provoking thing she screamed at him from her perch, he ignored her, though his cheek muscle jumped at every word. He had taken a vow of silence, but at a cost. She had no such compunction, and would harangue him until her tongue fell off.
“Edward, I demand that you let me go on to Dorset. There is a cottage in Dorset for me, is there not? With a charming garden as you described? Hollyhocks? Hydrangeas?”
He poured the water into the tub. His ill-fitting pants slipped, and she caught a glimpse of his bare backside before he hiked them up again. He’d overlooked something critical in his grand plan—a pair of braces.
On his next return, she queried, “How did you persuade the Hazletts to be in league with you in this criminal enterprise? It must have cost you a fortune. A pity, for the money will not be of any use to them in jail.” She said the last in her loudest voice, just in case they were hovering in the hallway. Her loudest voice, however, wasn’t very loud—she’d hollered herself quite hoarse. Even from across the room, she could see the cotton batting in Edward’s ears. Of course he wasn’t responding, vile vermin that he was.
Why waste her breath when she could plan her escape? There were still three vases to throw, although the rest of the furniture looked impervious to breakage. Edward had tramped on and crushed the flowers on the carpet with his inferior boots, releasing their perfume. Under other circumstances, she would find the atmosphere impossibly sensual—a half-naked man toiling on her behalf, a well-appointed room in a remote country house (she was up high enough on the giant bed to see out the open window—nothing but rolling meadow and distant sheep), a bed large enough to contain any acrobatic activity she could dream up. But if Edward Allerton Christie the Elder had designs upon her battered and bound body, he was to be sorely disappointed.
Their talk that last night in the garden should have put an end to any hope of reconciliation. Despite the tender kisses, despite the scorching heat between them, they had agreed any further contact would be impossible. Caroline couldn’t be his mistress, and certainly not his wife. Clearly Edward had forgotten and lost his sanity, but she was determined to remember and keep hers, for both their sakes.
At last he seemed satisfied by the volume of water. He sat down and wrestled off his boots, peeled off his stockings, stood up and dropped his horrid pants. Caroline shut her eyes, but not before noticing he was aroused beyond reason.
She waited in rigid resignation for him to carry her to the bath. Instead she heard a splash.
She cracked open one eye. He was scrubbing his armpit with his lime-scented soap, whistling. Whistling! She tried to shriek, but croaked instead.
“You know,” he said conversationally, as if she were not tied up like a rabid dog, “I’ve become a terrible creature of habit. Some find the scent of bay rum pleasant, but give me my own lime cologne. My playacting the villain was as much torture for me as it was for you. I itch all over. I’m going to have Hazlett burn that suit.” Water sluiced down his brown chest, beading on his nipples.
He lathered his bristled face and unkempt hair. This new, unimproved Edward confused her. He had never shared so intimate an act as bathing in front of her, except for the one time she’d barged into his dressing room and slipped into his tub uninvited. She’d made him like it in the end, but he was a man who thrived on a strict routine, and she was usually an unwelcome interruption. She had spent their year of married life weighted down by his continuous disapproval.
“Bastard.” Caroline’s old sense of humiliation fluttered to the surface. Perhaps he’d get soap in his eyes and go blind, she thought sourly.
He leaned back and poured water on his head, slicking back his long dark hair until every beautifully chiseled plane of his face was revealed. Then he pulled the wet cotton from his ears, tossing it among the flattened roses on the floor. “Did you say something?”
Caroline bit her tongue.
“This bath is so refreshing. I find travel arduous in the best of circumstances, don’t you? You know, the water is still hot.”
Caroline tasted blood.
“The tub is large enough for two. If you like, we can share it. Get the road dust off.”
Caroline would like. She found herself furiously jealous of Edward’s liquid display. “Will you untie me?”
“Unnecessary. I believe I’m perfectly capable of washing you. Everywhere.” His smile was purely satanical.
“Absolutely not then.”
“Don’t be stubborn, Caro. I know how you like your baths. Do you remember the morning you surprised me in my bath at Christie Park?”
God, he remembered. Or could he read minds? “You were appalled at the disruption of your daily regimen. And your old valet—what was his name? The one before Cameron—couldn’t look me in the eye for months.”
“Well, as I said, it was a surprise. Poor Melrose didn’t expect to find us in such a tangle when he came to barber me.”
“I wish he’d cut off your—” She snapped her lips shut.
“Pardon? I must have water in my ears.” He shook his head like a glossy spaniel.
“Nothing. Edward, while I appreciate your effort to get me in your clutches, I don’t want to be clutched. I made that perfectly clear several weeks ago.”
“I know what you said. I don’t agree anymore. We may not be ideally suited to each other, but I’m sure we can find some common ground with a little work.”
“The only time we’ll fin
d common ground is when we’re both buried under it in the family plot. I assume there’s still room for me at the churchyard?”
Edward looked a bit sheepish. They once had a discussion about her eventual placement. As an ever-organized Christie, he had dispassionately informed her of her future. Edward was to be the jam husband to his two wives’ bread. The headstone was already in place, just waiting for the requisite dates. In Edward’s case, Caroline hoped it would be soon.
“We have decades to go before we need worry about that, I trust.” Edward rose from the tub, glistening like a pagan god. He bent, took the knife from his discarded pants and dripped across the carpet.
“You’ll ruin the rug.”
He glanced at the long water stain and the broken flowers. “I’d say it’s already ruined. Bradlaw won’t like it.”
“We’re at Bradlaw House?” Hope jumped in her heart. She’d been there before, but never upstairs. A small garden party had been held in their honor after she and Edward came to Christie Park to escape the gossip when they were first married. Lady Bradlaw had been all that was kind, conducting her through an exquisite parterre garden. Lord Bradlaw, a friendly, jolly sort, was a neighbor and one of Edward’s oldest friends. Caroline never understood how such a warm, animated man could cope with the block of ice that was Edward.
He looked warm enough now, and a wave of her own heat suffused her cheeks. Edward loomed over her, deliciously wet and naked, the blade of the knife glinting in the sunlight. “Ah. You’d never manage a bluff in a game of cards—your expression betrays you utterly. Don’t get any ideas. Tom and Susannah Bradlaw are still in town waiting on the king’s pleasure. They can’t help you run from me.”
She made a gorgon-face at him. Let him understand that. She wouldn’t need the Bradlaws’ help. At least she knew where she was, and how to get back to London. She held her breath as the knife came perilously close to her heart.
“Go ahead. Stab me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Hold still.”
Caroline waited for him to cut the ropes again.
Ping ping ping. The cherry-red buttons of her spencer bounced to the floor.
“What are you doing?” she rasped. The buttons had been fashioned to resemble little rosebuds and she had been very fond of them.
Edward frowned. “I’m not sure a knife will do. I’ll be right back.”
Hell and damnation. He was back with a large pair of shears before she could count to one hundred.
“I’ll have you know this outfit cost a fortune!”
“I’ll replace it.” Mercilessly, he cut the sleeves of her jacket straight down her arms. He balled up the fabric and it joined the rest of the mess on the Bradlaws’ carpet.
“You are a fiend,” Caroline said behind clenched teeth. Much worse than her old neighbor Charlotte’s lover Sir Michael Bayard.
“I’ve got to hurry. It wouldn’t do for the water to get cold. You might catch a chill.”
“I hope you catch lung fever!” She flinched when his hand snaked under her bodice as he cut the red kerseymere skirt down to the hem. She was left in nothing but rope and her chemise and stockings. Her half-boots had been removed long ago after the series of kicks.
Edward grinned. “No corset?”
Caroline would not dignify the question with an answer. As she had been travelling alone, it had seemed simpler to dispense with the contraption. Her destroyed carriage dress had been constructed with special boning at her direction.
Snip snip snip. Despite the warmth of the afternoon sunlight, her nipples contracted as her chemise gave way to air. Edward’s hands trembled as he unfastened her garters. He had put the scissors down somewhere, but unless he untied her hands, he was safe.
For the time being.
She wondered how he’d get the stockings out from under the rope, but then he gripped her heels and cut the bonds. She lay still as death as he folded each stocking down with agonizing precision, his knuckles brushing her leg with each fold. Raising one limb, he massaged the pins and needles away with his warm, strong hands. Up and down, up and down, his fingers squeezed and released perfect pressure on the soles of her feet, her calves, the back of her knees. She forgot she was free to kick him as he swept up her inner thigh. His forefinger wandered just where she wanted it to. To her shame, she was wet and eager for his touch. Then he seemed to remember that the water temperature was no doubt cooling as her betraying body flared in heat.
“Can you walk or shall I carry you?”
“Carry,” she whispered. She was too languid to step across the minefield of blossoms and cut clothing. He scooped her from the mattress and climbed into the tub, nestling her in his lap. His erection teased her cleft, but he made no move to insert himself in her aching hollow.
Her hands bound as if in prayer, she leaned against him as he covered her with his scent, the soap slick against her back and buttocks. Edward smoothed the bar over her hip, then swirled it around each breast until her nipples were stiff and rose-pink between the bubbles. She was his canvas as he painted every inch of her with froth, sliding back and forth over her sensitive skin. Her anger was slipping away as it always did when they were twined together. She closed her eyes and sought a fragment of sanity, but it eluded her as she fell deeper under his fluid spell.
His soap-filled hand stroked downward to her belly, then lower to her swollen clitoris. She opened her legs to him, desperate for more. He used a hard corner of the lime-scented cake in place of his fingers, rubbing with dedication until she drowned in sensation, his lips at her throat, his thumb at her breast. As she raised her hips in cresting orgasm, his cock sheathed itself in one deliberate thrust.
At last. He filled her as she shuddered around him, rising and falling, heedless of the water splashing over the rim, heedless of anything but his hard cock and hands on her hips lifting her from bliss and then back down. She was branded by his ownership everywhere as he embedded himself deep within her. His ragged breath tickled her neck, his teeth grazed her shoulder. The dark damp hairs of his chest curled against her back as his hand cupped her mound to keep her tight and taut against him as he emptied himself. She glided from wave to wave, helpless to find a shred of objection, to find a shred of anything that might pass for thought. She would be indignant later, make him sorry later, leave him later.
Later would come all too soon. For now she was content to be fitted to him in perfect harmony, her heart skipping as his cock pulsed inside her. The water had lost its warmth, but she was hot and heaving in his arms, reluctant to seek comfort anywhere else.
She stayed on his lap as he dipped a sponge into the pitcher, wiping cool water across her brow, down the bridge of her nose, circling the apples of her cheeks, soaking up the tears that fell. His lips rested in her hair as he smoothed a path to her throat. His touch was perfect in every way.
“I have waited for this for almost a month, Caro.” His words were rough, reminding her of his villain-voice.
“D-don’t get used to it. It won’t happen again.” But it would, if she stayed at Bradlaw House. She had to shake herself out of her sensual coma and do her own plotting.
“Ah. What will it take to make you change your mind?”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“What if I free your hands?”
Caroline had practically forgotten she was still enslaved by rope. That was the least of her enslavement, but he must not know it. “It won’t matter.”
“Very well then.” He lifted her up and slipped away. “I’ll dry you off.” He hoisted one long leg over the side of the tub.
“I can dry myself.”
He reached for the stack of towels and draped one low on his hips. “It will be difficult if I don’t cut the cords.”
“You mean you won’t?”
He shrugged. “You seemed to think it wouldn’t matter.”
“Well, it does matter! I meant there’s nothing you can do to keep me here. To make me be your wife again.” She c
ouldn’t hope or yearn or deceive herself that it would ever be different between them. Edward could never be less than a perfect gentleman, and she was as far from perfect as she could possibly be.
“We’ll see.” He pulled her up from the tub, then rubbed her vigorously with a linen towel. He fashioned it toga-style and Caroline was reminded of the debacle with the sheet so many weeks ago.
“Edward,” she said, trying to blunt the edge of impatience in her tone, “this really is ridiculous. You are too old to be playing games with me.”
“This isn’t a game.”
“What do you call it then? You are a grown man who disguised himself as a ruffian and took a woman by force!”
“Not by force. By cunning. And you are not just any woman. You are my wife. If you’ll sit down, I’ll brush your hair.”
For the first time Caroline realized her own bottles and brushes lay on the vanity table. Mrs. Hazlett must have put them there. She imagined if she went into the dressing room, her clothes would be hanging neat as you please. Edward had persuaded her servants to conspire against her. Caroline knew just how convincing he could be, but she was not going to cooperate.
“Absolutely not.”
“You’ve said that before. You really don’t want your hair to dry like that. I’m having flashbacks to the illustrations of Medusa in my Greek textbook.”
“I may have not had your classical education, but I believe if you looked into Medusa’s face, you could see your own death,” Caroline retorted, staring him down. “Well?”
“Sorry. Still very much alive. I’ll have to take the scissors to the knots in your hair next.” He had the gall to look rueful, as if the whole nightmare was not his fault.
“I’ll brush it myself if you untie me!”
“I’m not certain I trust you yet.”
“How many times must I fuck you before you trust me?”
Edward paled. “Don’t reduce what we just did to simple fucking. It was more than that. Much more.”
“Delude yourself then.” She threw herself down on the bench. Her fit of pique was rather spoiled when the towel decided to come undone. Edward wrapped it around her shoulders like a shroud and she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Dead would probably be prettier. “Fine. Do whatever you want.”
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