He hadn’t intended to say anything. “Nice toes, though,” he added, trying for some vagrant humor and not finding any. He sighed and began to dry her hair.
But it was simply too much. The wretched towel he’d wrapped around her wasn’t enough. It was torture, and there was no chance he was going to make her any less wary of him than she already was. He carried her to the bed and got her into his dressing gown, wrapping it twice around her and tying the belt securely. She made no protest during this operation. He knew that she would have fought him to the edge if she’d had the strength. She said not a word when he carried her back to the chair by the fire.
By the time her hair was only slightly damp, his arm was aching from combing out tangles and holding her. He eased her down and arranged himself more comfortably. Her long hair was hanging loose over his arm. She was well covered, the fire was well stocked and hot, and soon both of them were sound asleep.
Burke awoke to a dark room. There were only glowing embers in the fireplace. He felt cramped, his neck sore, and his left arm was numb. Arielle was nestled against him, still deeply asleep, her body so relaxed that it quickly gave rise to more erotic fantasies.
He brought her closer, breathing in the sweet scent of her. My wife, he thought; she is finally my wife. It was deep in the middle of the night. He heard the sounds of the house, the groans and the quiet creakings, the gentle swishing of tree branches against the windows. He felt at peace and pleasantly hazy in his thoughts. Reality did not intrude.
“Let’s go to bed, wife,” he said and smiled at his words. He truly was happy with the sound of that.
It was Arielle who awoke first the following morning and she was wonderfully warm. It took her a moment to realize that the warmth was from Burke. She was lying against him, her head on his chest, her leg thrown over his thighs. One arm was holding her firmly against him. She could hear his even, deep breathing. She flattened her palm on his chest and stilled. He was naked. Crisp hair was between her splayed fingers.
“Burke?”
He mumbled something in his sleep and tightened his hold on her. Slowly, very slowly, she managed to pull away from him. His dressing gown gaped open down her front and she quickly drew it tightly against her. She was nearly free when she heard him say easily, “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
Her cheeks were flushed, her hair in tangles about her face and down her back. He could have told her that she was the most exquisite creature in the world to him.
They stared at each other, she at a stranger, he at his wife.
“You have whiskers,” she said.
“Men usually do in the morning.”
“You also have hair on your chest.”
“Just about everywhere, I’m afraid, except for my back. I’d just as soon not shave my body, if you don’t mind. I hope it doesn’t offend you too much.”
This was ridiculous. “I want to leave now.”
“This very moment? Wearing my dressing gown?”
She lowered her head. He was teasing her, sounding gentle, but it made no difference to her fear. It made no difference to the reality of things. He was lying in bed with her, naked, ready to do whatever pleased him. “I feel much better,” she said at last, moving a few inches away from him.
“Good. So do I. Now I will remove myself for a while. Will you be all right until I return?”
She nodded.
“I believe I can even find a nightgown for you.”
“A nightgown? Where did a nightgown come from?”
“I bought one for you.” There, he thought; face a bit of reality, Arielle. “In London, when I was planning to abduct you. I couldn’t be worried about bringing any baggage from your carriage, so I had to buy you a few things. Had you looked in the armoire in the other bedchamber, you would have found several gowns, slippers, and undergarments. No bonnets, though. That was beyond me. I’m sorry. Actually, I bought you just one nightgown and you wore it all during your illness. I’m not certain if Mrs. Ringlestone has laundered it.”
Whether she faced reality or anything else, he didn’t know, for she said nothing.
She continued to say nothing until he left the bedchamber. She turned away when he’d gotten out of bed. Nor did she turn to face him even when he told her he was well covered. Burke gave her a long look from the door, then left, gently closing it behind him.
Burke didn’t want to leave her alone too long. He knew the moment of reckoning was very near now. After all, Mrs. Ringlestone and Ruby couldn’t be expected to keep their respective mouths closed around her. He would have to tell her and he would have to put the plain gold band back on her third finger.
When he entered the bedchamber, he found her sitting by the fireplace, a blanket over her legs, her head against the cushion. She’d brushed most of the tangles from her hair, pulled it back, and wrapped a thick strand of her own hair about it to hold it in place. Her eyes were very large in her thin face and he thought her the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, certainly the most beautiful woman he’d ever loved. He was smiling at his foolish and pleasing thoughts as he said easily, “Mrs. Ringlestone will be bringing our breakfast soon. Are you hungry?”
“Yes. At this rate I shall be fat as a flawn by winter.”
“Good, I’m partial to overweight flawns. Now, Arielle, there is something we need to discuss.”
“I want to leave.”
“Something other than that.”
“I don’t want to talk to you about anything else.”
“A pity, but you must. Remember I told you that if you married me I would take you to Boston to see your half sister?”
She frowned at that, not trusting him an inch, but intrigued by his question. “Yes. Why?”
He drew a deep breath and pulled the wedding band from his pocket. He took her hand, and before she knew what he was about, he had worked the ring over the knuckle of her third finger. It was tight, which was just fine with him.
“We’re married,” he said.
Arielle stared down at the ring. She tried to pull it off but failed. She kept shaking her finger, yanking at it. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we aren’t married. Why, I—” She looked panicked, and uncertain, and stricken. “That mangy little man—that other man who had the oddest accent—”
“The mangy one is the vicar. He married us. The other is Dr. Armbruster. He’s a Scotsman, thus his accent.”
“That’s impossible. A woman must agree, I know that.”
Burke leaned down, placing one hand on each chair arm, his face only inches from hers. “You must listen to me, and I will tell you everything.” He straightened and leaned against the mantelpiece. “It’s really very simple. I thought you were dying. In your delirium, you spoke of many things. But over and over you said you wanted me. You said you couldn’t bear your life the way it was, the way it had been. I asked you to marry me and you said yes.”
“That’s a lie. I would never—”
“In your delirium, Arielle. In any case, I felt it was what you wanted, deep down somewhere in your mind, so I spoke to the vicar about it. He agreed. He married us. I have since taken care of the bishop, the special licenses, and all that. We are legally married.”
“I can’t remember anything.”
He hated the panic, the fear, in her voice, hated the necessity for the lie about her sentiments. “Arielle, I could not force you to marry me. But you said ‘I do’ quite clearly when the vicar asked you if you would take me for your husband. There were three witnesses. You signed the marriage papers. It is done.”
“It cannot be true.”
“It will be good between us, you will see.”
She gave him a bitter look. “Aren’t you afraid that I will murder you just as I did my dead husband?”
“No. Did you? Murder him, I mean.”
“Yes,” she said, her voice vicious. “Yes, I did, and I’ll murder you too!”
She was hurting so much. He wished there were something he coul
d do, something magical he could say. “I will try to make you happy, Arielle.”
“Will you?”
“Why would you think I wouldn’t? I love you, after all. Why would I want to make the woman I love unhappy?”
There was a light knock on the door. Burke called out impatiently, “Come in, Mrs. Ringlestone.”
The older woman came into the room, smiling widely. “Och, I knew you’d be much better this morning, my lady. His lordship ordered a breakfast grand enough to feed a battalion. Yes, he did, and I agree that—”
Arielle was looking at Burke, paying little attention to Mrs. Ringlestone’s ramblings. Her husband. Burke now owned her just as Paisley had. He would possess her completely in any fashion he wished, and he had every right to treat her any way he pleased. She saw clearly, starkly, the dream she’d had before. Paisley had become Burke, and he was over her, and naked, and he wasn’t impotent, as her husband had been. She’d seen the future and it had happened.
She wasn’t aware that tears were falling slowly from her eyes and silently running down her cheeks. Mrs. Ringlestone saw them and was so startled and dismayed, she stopped talking, staring helplessly at Arielle.
“Please leave us, Mrs. Ringlestone,” Burke said.
When she had left, Burke took Arielle in his arms and pulled her onto his lap. She didn’t protest. She didn’t say anything. She seemed distant and sealed off from him.
He couldn’t stand it. “Tell me why you’re crying.”
Her head went back and forth against his shoulder.
“You will tell me now, Arielle.”
It was his meanest voice and he hated using it with her, but yet again, it worked.
“I won’t do it. I won’t.” She was trembling, with rage, fear, he didn’t know what.
“What won’t you do? Answer me, damn you.”
“That awful dream, it’s come true, but I won’t let you hurt me, I won’t.”
“Tell me about the dream.”
It didn’t occur to her not to tell him. He was using his man’s voice and she responded to it instantly. “The night after I met you again, at Bunberry Lake, I dreamed. There were Paisley and other men as well and they all had—and then Paisley became you and you were in my bed and forcing me. I couldn’t stop you. You’re too strong. Don’t you see?”
“Yes,” he said quietly, “I do see. But why was I forcing you? That makes no sense.”
“You’re a man.”
“A man who loves you.”
“That is stupid, it doesn’t matter, and you’re lying.”
Burke leaned his head back and closed his eyes. His hand began stroking her upper arm. Her tears stopped. She supposed she cried so little because tears meant there was some sort of hope. She had none. And he’d ordered her to stop, so she did.
Burke wanted desperately at that moment to tell her that he knew the truth, but he wasn’t certain that she could take it. Finding out she was married to him was quite likely more than enough for her to absorb, at least for the present. He admitted too that he was wary about telling her, frightened about his reaction to what she would tell him, if she told him anything. Never for as long as he lived would he forget the helpless rage that had consumed him when he’d realized the truth. His beautiful, innocent girl, abused by that monster.
Never would he forget that moment, never. It was as clear in his mind now as it had been then. It was late at night, their wedding night, actually. Her fever had risen as it always did at night and her breathing was heavy, labored. He’d been bathing her, quite efficient at it now, thinking vaguely that in all his fantasies about her, he’d never envisioned this one for his wedding night. Finally, he’d turned her onto her stomach and tossed her thick braid over her shoulder. He began stroking the cool, damp cloth across her back, over her hips, and down her long legs. His rhythm was steady, the pressure light, and he was silently reciting Latin declensions in order to control his lust. The candle gutted suddenly and he paused to light another. He held it up for a moment. And then he looked at her, really looked, with the light strong and steady, and he grew very still.
He shook his head automatically. It had to be a trick of the candlelight. But it wasn’t. He brought the candle nearer. He lightly touched a fingertip to one of the thin white marks. Then to another. There were so many. He looked at her buttocks and thighs. More white lines, and he wanted to howl, to scream, but he didn’t. It wouldn’t help. It would make no difference. She’d been beaten, often and thoroughly. He closed his eyes, unable to handle the reality of those marks. Her half brother? He was shaking his head even as he thought that. No, her husband, of course. That was why she was terrified of men, and why she hadn’t wanted to marry him.
The enormity of the situation struck Burke squarely between the eyes. He continued to run the cloth over her until finally she cooled and once again her fever was down. Gently, he turned her over. He saw now several of the faded white lines on her breasts and on her belly. He swallowed convulsively. He climbed into bed with her then, holding her tightly against him, trying to think things through. To beat a sixteen-year-old girl. And not just any girl, but a young lady of quality. The truth strained credulity, and he wasn’t certain he would have believed it if the proof weren’t before his eyes.
While he’d been thinking about her during the past three years, weaving fantasies that had run the gamut of intensely erotic to tenderly sweet, she’d been naked, beaten, and on her knees in front of her husband, taking him in her mouth and servicing him, learning to do it with the expertise of the most accomplished courtesan.
Dear heavens, he couldn’t bear to think of it, but he did, of course. She’d been broken so completely that she’d even accepted him when he’d merely held the riding crop. He remembered her urgency, her frantic movements to strip off her clothes. She believed he was going to beat her if she didn’t hurry.
He wondered if Paisley Cochrane had given her to other men. He wouldn’t have been at all surprised.
If only he’d married her three years before, he thought again and again. To hell with scruples for her youth, to hell with everything.
What was he going to do now?
He looked up, aware that he’d been locked into his thoughts. She’d begun to eat her breakfast. He tried to smile, but it was difficult. How to deal with it?
He helped her into bed once she’d finished. He set the tray outside the chamber door, then returned to sit on the end of the bed.
He realized in that moment that he didn’t want to tell her that he knew. He couldn’t begin to imagine her reaction. No, he thought, his decision made, he would have to make her trust him first.
And sexual intimacy between a husband and wife? He didn’t know. He knew only that he would make her accustomed to him, to his body, to his touching and holding her.
“You’re very strong,” she said suddenly, surprising him.
Everything she said now had new meaning to him, but he wouldn’t let her know. Not yet. He said easily, “Yes, and that strength is for your protection. Don’t ever fear my strength, Arielle, but be glad for it.”
“You are very fluent, Burke.”
He paused a moment, then said the truth of her vague words for her. “As in all men are liars and cruel and ravening beasts?”
“Yes.” Her chin went up, but he saw the fear lurking in her eyes even as she gave voice to her small defiance. He rose and she shrank back.
He ignored her reaction and said, “When you are well enough, we will go to Ravensworth Abbey. Your servants are doubtless there, waiting for their mistress.”
“I want to go to Boston. You promised.”
“Yes, and we shall.” As soon as you are pregnant. And that, he knew, was probably going to be a formidable task. The lie for the doctor and the vicar had been as far from reality as Burke could ever have imagined telling. “As soon as the war between the two countries is over,” he said. “This fall should see the end to it. Now, would you like to rest for a while?”
She nodded, and he thought, Anything to be rid of me. So be it, he decided, and left the bedchamber.
“What are you doing?”
Her voice was thin-sounding, shrill.
He smiled at her and continued unfastening the buttons on his breeches. He pulled down his breeches and his undergarments and stepped out of them. He stood there, naked, still smiling at her. He wasn’t particularly aroused, but if she kept looking at him, he soon would be.
“I’m going to bathe,” he said easily. “Would you care to join me?”
“No. Please, can you not go into another room? Or let me leave this one?”
He walked toward her and her eyes fell from his face and he knew that she was looking at him and every masculine feeling in him responded and he felt himself swelling. Well, she wasn’t an innocent. She needed to know that he desired her as a woman.
Then he saw her fear and he stopped. He calmly reached for his dressing gown and slipped it on. He’d accomplished a little bit. Next time he was naked, she wouldn’t react so strongly; at least he hoped she wouldn’t. She would become accustomed to him. He knew her body as well as he knew his own. He had no intention of remaining a physical stranger to her. She would learn him; she would become used to him.
“Would you like to have a conversation with me?” he asked, arching a brow at her.
“I would like to dress and leave this room.”
“All right. Dr. Armbruster will be coming shortly. If he says you are well enough, I will carry you downstairs.”
Then he calmly stripped off his dressing gown and stepped into the tub. He sang as he washed himself, watching her from the corner of his eye. Her expression was pained. From his singing or the threat of his man’s body?
Dr. Armbruster wasn’t particularly surprised when the earl kept him downstairs for several minutes. No, he agreed, he would say nothing to her about her pregnancy. Certainly he understood that she would be embarrassed.
Night Fire Page 15