“Oh.”
Alex laughed at her shocked expression. “What do you wear to bed, my lady?”
She tried to think of a saucy answer, but she’d already admitted to sharing a bed with her younger sister. Wit failed her and she wound up blurting out the truth instead. “A nightgown, of course.”
He clucked his tongue again. This time, in pity. “I expected more imagination from a young lady like you.”
“Which shows how little you know about young ladies like me,” she retorted. “The only choices we have are yards of white linen in spring and summer and yards of white flannel in autumn and winter.”
“You’re a married woman now,” he reminded her. “You needn’t confine yourself to girlish nightgowns. You may sleep in whatever strikes your fancy.”
“Such as?”
“A man’s nightshirt for one,” he teased. “And in his arms for another.”
“Any man’s arms?” she shot back. “Or yours?”
Alex narrowed his gaze at her and Liana realized her teasing retort had hit a sore spot. He moved so quickly she didn’t quite know how it happened.
Wrapping his arms around her, Alex pulled her to him. “I’m cold, wet, tired and hungry because of you, Liana. Make no mistake about it, if you’re going to be in any man’s arms, they’re going to be mine.”
Ducking his head, Alex covered her mouth with his.
His words were ferocious. His kiss was equally fierce. He worked his lips over hers, leaving no doubt of who he was or what he wanted. He was Alexander Courtland, Marquess of Courtland. Her husband. And he wanted to make certain she understood it. He could take what he wanted, but he didn’t. He didn’t try to dominate her with his kisses. He coaxed. He persuaded. He asked permission, testing the seam of her lips with the tip of his tongue until she parted her lips and granted him access. Once inside, Alex swept the interior of her mouth with his tongue, taking what she gave him and offering sublime pleasure in return.
Closing her eyes, Liana melted against him, allowing him further liberties with his lips and tongue. And hands. She felt, rather than saw, the path he took as he moved his hands from her waist, up her ribs, skimming the underside of her breasts with his thumbs, before he reached her upper back and the neckline of her dress. He sucked her bottom lip, giving it one last tug before ending contact with her mouth. He brushed his mouth over her chin to the underside of her jaw until he reached the pulse beating a rapid tattoo at the hollow of her throat.
Her knees nearly buckling from the burst of pleasure he gave her, Liana slipped her injured arm out of the sling and wrapped both of her arms around his neck, holding on as she threaded her fingers through the soft hair at the back of his head.
Alex groaned against her throat. Liana felt the vibrations and the warmth of his breath against her neck. Pressing closer, she urged him on as he slowly, tenderly kissed his way up the curve of her neck. He nipped at her earlobe, teased the emerald drops hanging from it, then sucked the lobe into his mouth to soothe the tiny bite before tracing the delicate crescent with the tip of his tongue.
A rush of warmth flooded her body from head to toe. Liana’s legs trembled. Alex tightened his arm about her waist to keep her upright. The air around them grew thick and heavy, crackling with the tension of bourgeoning desire. Her whole body tingled. Liana marveled at it. She’d never felt anything like it, had never imagined anything like the pleasure she felt.
“Alex?”
His leisurely exploration of her ear and the light breeze on the bare flesh of her back made her shiver uncontrollably. “Hmm?”
“What are you doing?”
“Undoing.” He drew back a fraction so he could see her face.
“What?” she whispered.
“Your buttons.”
“Oh.”
“You said you couldn’t reach them,” he reminded her. “And that you wanted to bathe before supper. I thought I’d lend a helping hand.”
He’d reached her waist. “You’re very good with buttons,” she murmured.
“I’m even better with laces.” Alex undid the last few buttons and began tackling the knots in her corset laces.
She gasped. “Oh.”
“I assumed you wanted me to unbutton and unlace you.” Alex did just that. “Or would you rather I summon Schuyler?”
They were back to that again.
“Well?” he prompted when she didn’t answer.
“I would rather you not summon Schuyler.”
“Because…”
“He’ll only be in the way,” she said. “While you’re kissing me.”
Alex laughed. “If you intend to bathe before supper, we’d better dispense with kissing.”
She gave his suggestion serious consideration. Another kiss or a hot bath? She was greedy. She wanted both. But if she had to choose, she’d choose the hot bath. This time. “All right.”
Alex stepped away from her, then turned and began hefting the pails of hot water and pouring them into her tub. “Don’t move,” he warned when she would have helped him. “Your dress is undone and your modesty is in danger.” He turned his back to her, allowing her a moment of privacy while he lifted the last bucket of water from the hearth and dumped it into the tub. Alex set the empty bucket on the floor beside the others and pulled the curtained screen into place around the tub and politely turned his back.
Seconds later, Liana draped her green wedding dress and her undergarments over it.
He turned back around when he heard the first splash and was rewarded with a silhouette of her body on the screen. The screen, covered in ivory silk, had been in the lady’s bedchamber for as long as he could remember. He and his father had hidden behind it when Alex was a child and had often jumped from behind it pretending they were pirates or Vikings or fierce Scots highlanders or monsters out to kidnap or rescue or devour his mother, the princess or fair maiden or unfortunate peasant girl. He and his father would roar and his mother would scream and the three of them would dissolve into laughter.
It was a game they had only played at the Abbey from the time he was in leading strings until he’d been sent away to school. It was a game that could only be played at the Abbey where life was less formal and less complicated, where his father had seemed younger and more carefree. They had been a happy family here in the country, far away from the responsibilities of London and Courtland Manor.
Courtland Manor was where he lived when he wasn’t in London, but to Alex, Greneleafe Abbey was home.
Alex watched as Liana lifted her hair, twisted it into a knot on the top of her head and smiled. He hadn’t thought about those games in years. Seeing his bride’s silhouette on the screen brought those carefree memories of childhood back to life.
Alex wondered if his father had enjoyed watching his mother like this when she bathed before the fire. “Is there anything else you need?”
The scent of vanilla and oranges reached his nostrils.
“Not anymore.” Liana sighed as she sank into the hot water. “Thank you for making this possible. Thank you for undoing me.”
“It was my pleasure, Lady Courtland.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Sons are the anchors of a mother’s life.”
—Sophocles, c. 495-406 b.c.
“You wanted me?” She stood silhouetted in the doorway of his bedchamber.
“Ah, Lady Courtland.” He beckoned her into the room. “Come in. I don’t bite.”
“I know better.” She moved far enough into the room to allow the footman with her to step in behind her and close the door.
“Then allow me to clarify. I won’t bite you.” The evil that was Felix Rothermere sat smiling, cradling his injured hand in his lap, on an upholstered chair beside the fireplace that was devoid of grate and andirons, fireplace tools, or wood despite the damp chill permeating the room.
Glancing around, Lady Courtland saw that anything that might be used as a weapon had been removed, including the candlesticks. The only li
ght came from the windows and from the sconces set into the wall. She realized Stallings wasn’t taking any chances with her safety. “What makes me the exception to the rule?”
Rothermere laughed. “I don’t care to risk contact with you. I find wrinkles repulsive.”
“Naturally.” Eleanor Courtland didn’t rise to the bait. She knew she had wrinkles. They were barely perceptible, but they were there nonetheless. She faced the mirror every morning and knew she was aging. She was eight and forty. But she was still a beautiful woman. Her chestnut-colored hair remained thick and vibrant, hiding the rare strands of gray. The wrinkles she bore at the corners of her gray-blue eyes and her bow-shaped mouth, she’d earned since the death of her husband. Rothermere couldn’t intimidate her. “I believe your preferences run toward young, innocent girls straight from the schoolroom.”
“You assume the pleasure I receive from young girls is in the taking of their maidenheads. But you’re wrong.”
“You do make a habit of it.”
“Because it’s easy,” he said. “I’m a marquess. Families practically beg me to take their daughters into my bed and board. They’re so eager to marry them off, they don’t bother about the details. They don’t question my desire for their daughters.”
“Rubbish!” She recognized the excuse for what it was. “You don’t have to take their daughters.”
“Unfortunately, like every other nobleman, I require an heir and until I secure one, I’ll continue to spend long tedious evenings at Almack’s and all the balls and parties and musicales to which I’m invited during the Season.” He shrugged. “And fathers and mothers desperate to marry off their darling female offspring to a title and money will pay me a handsome dowry to take them.”
“You don’t care anything about begetting an heir,” Eleanor said. “You fathered two children with Felicity and you killed both of them.”
“My son and heir was stillborn,” he sneered. “And the second child was a girl. What good was that? Felicity let my son and heir die while the worthless girl came into the world kicking and squalling like the bitch she would have grown up to be.”
“How dare you blame Felicity? You killed her babies. You were their father and you allowed them to die. You beat Felicity to within an inch of her life for having a daughter and then you smothered her baby in front of her eyes.” Lady Courtland was so angry she was shaking.
“If I remember correctly, her eyes were swollen shut,” he corrected. “She could not bear witness to anything I did or didn’t do to the girl child.”
“You’re a monster. You have no feelings.” She spoke in a low tone, vibrating with subdued rage.
“Not true,” he countered. “I feel pleasure and pain. I like a good slap and tickle as well as the next man, but it’s the pain I crave.” He licked his lips. “Theirs, of course. Not my own. Although a light caning has its pleasures…” He paused to leer at Lady Courtland. “I enjoy taking fresh, nubile, unblemished flesh and marking it. I enjoy knowing I put marks on their skin where I want and when I want and no one can stop me. I derive great pleasure from blemishing unblemished flesh. That’s why I marry them. No man—marquess or marchioness—has the right to interfere with what takes place between a man and his wife. Don’t make the same mistake your husband did. And don’t fool yourself. Felicity enjoyed what we shared together. She craved it, too.”
“You’re despicable!” If she had possessed a weapon—a knife or a sword or a dueling foil—she would have stabbed him right through the heart and been done with it. Stallings must have sensed it, for he put a restraining hand on her arm. She took a deep breath and let the anger roll over her, wondering how a man as attractive as Felix Rothermere could be so depraved and still be allowed to mingle with society.
“You didn’t think so eighteen years ago when you encouraged your beautiful young sister to accept my troth. You found me charming, a perfect husband for your darling Felicity.”
“I believe it today,” she told him. “I believe it with all my heart and I will regret to my dying day the fact that I didn’t recognize your evil nature then.”
“How very bourgeois of you to blame yourself for something you were powerless to prevent,” he mused, looking up at his hostess. “You wear your regrets like a suit of armor. You hire Bow Street Runners to prove the unprovable, to salve your conscience for the consequences of the actions you put into motion.” He shook his head and made that clucking sound with his tongue she detested. “Have you not learned that life is too short to waste on regrets?”
“It certainly is where you are concerned.”
“Tsk, tsk, Lady Courtland.” He clucked again. “Or should I call you Lady Eleanor, now that you’ve been supplanted by the scheming little whore your son married today?”
“Frankly, I’m amazed you have the nerve to address me at all.” She gazed down her nose at him and the chill in her voice was enough to give him frostbite.
“I have to call you something and I doubt you’d answer to my private name for you,” he sneered. “It isn’t generally used in mixed company. And no gentleman would call his hostess Lady Bitch to her face.”
The footman moved to step between Lady Courtland and her houseguest, but she waved him aside and faced the spawn of Satan spewing insults at her. “I would never accuse you of being courageous or a gentleman, Rothermere. What you call me matters not a whit. Sticks and stones. I’m quite sure I’ve been called worse by men far better than you.”
“I’m sure you have, too,” he agreed. “But that’s a discourse for another day.”
“Only if you survive this one,” she reminded him. “As it stands now, the odds are heavily weighted against it.”
He smiled at her. “Even a condemned man has the right to face his accuser. I waited for you to visit me on your own. When I tired of waiting, I sent for you. After all, you stood at the altar in a chapel this morning and swore before a crowd of peers that you would take care of me in atonement for the injury your whelp meted out to me.”
“That was before I knew you enjoyed pain,” she reminded him. “I see no reason to atone for something that afforded you pleasure.”
“I find inflicting pain pleasurable.” He faked a remorseful smile. “I’m not as enamored with receiving it.”
“I stood at an altar in a room masquerading as a chapel this morning and promised to provide the same care for you that you provided for Felicity.” Lady Courtland’s disdain spoke volumes.
“Felicity died.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Exactly.”
For the first time since she’d entered the room, Felix Rothermere looked uncertain. “I’m a peer of the realm…”
“A mere accident of birth. Like your spawning.”
“And a guest in your home. Certain rules of etiquette apply. You cannot mean to do me further harm.”
“I don’t mean to do you harm at all.” She smiled sweetly, then watched as Rothermere visibly relaxed. “I mean to let someone else do it for me.” She glanced at the big footman standing beside her.
He resorted to bluster. “You would pay someone to do me harm?”
“I would pay someone to do more than harm you.”
He scoffed. “What of the rules of etiquette? How would it look if the Dowager Marchioness of Courtland paid to have murder committed?”
“The same rules of etiquette apply whether it’s the Dowager Marchioness of Courtland hiring murderers to carry out her dirty deed or the Marquess of Rothermere hiring murderers to carry out his.” She met his gaze with an unflinching gaze of her own. “As I recall, that’s how I became the Dowager Marchioness of Courtland.”
Rothermere looked from the marchioness to her footman as if trying to gauge the danger. “You miscalculate, Lady Bitch. Your manservant is a witness to your murderous threats.”
“Do I?” Her tone of voice was sweeter than before. “I think not. I miscalculated with you once. I won’t make that mistake again. My footman is paid to do my biddin
g. Whatever my bidding might be.”
“You would do murder for her?” Rothermere demanded of the manservant.
The footman nodded. “I would do anything for her.”
Rothermere glared at Lady Courtland. “Everyone in that chapel today knows you brought me here. If any mischief befalls me, my family and friends will hold you personally accountable.”
“You have no friends, Rothermere. None that can’t be bought, if today was any indication. And no family to speak of. Unless you count the families of your late wives…” She placed her index finger on her cheek as if considering the possibilities. “And I feel certain they will rush to your aid in vindication of your tender care of their lost daughters. In fact, I’ll lead the charge.”
Forgetting his injury, Rothermere squeezed the arms of the chair in impotent rage, then yelped at the additional damage he inflicted on his broken finger. “I demand to see my physician immediately.”
Lady Courtland noted with satisfaction that Rothermere’s face had paled and his features were pinched with pain. “Demand all you like,” she told him. “I’ve already sent for my personal physician.” She gazed down at her mortal enemy. “He cannot attend you immediately. He didn’t have enough tincture of opium on hand to do the job. He had to go to town for more.”
“More?” Rothermere demanded. “How much liquid poppy does it take to ease the pain of one broken appendage?”
“I don’t know, Felix.” Lady Courtland’s expression didn’t change a whit. She continued to stare through him. “Felicity had ten broken appendages, four broken limbs, an equal number of fractured ribs, a broken nose, eye socket, and jaw. When he attended her, the dosage my physician administered did nothing to ease her pain. I have no idea how much it will take to ease yours,” she drawled. “I do know my physician swore that if he ever met the man who did that to my darling sister, he would make sure he had enough opium juice to permanently end his suffering.” Lady Courtland beamed at her former brother-in-law. “He’s waited nearly fifteen years for the opportunity. I’m sure he’s looking forward to meeting you and to taking excellent care of you.” Turning her back on him, the Dowager Marchioness of Courtland headed toward the door.
A Bachelor Still Page 17