But how would she accept it?
Would it repulse her?
It didn’t matter. He must share this with her.
He slowly stood then he turned away from her and removed his clothing. With the edges of his shirt in his hands, he paused and stared into the fire.
Once again, the bullet burned into his side.
Once again, the anger boiled in his blood. Damn Winterton!
“Adrian?”
He pulled the shirt up and over his head then threw it over the chair. He turned to her.
Chapter Ten
Adrian could see how stiffly Miranda held herself. He sensed that she held her breath and then her eyes widened. The color drained from her face.
She put her hand to her mouth and ran to him. He caught her by the waist. She pressed her head to his chest and the wetness of her tears burned into his flesh. He pulled her closer and rocked her slightly.
“Oh Adrian.” She gasped. “Oh Adrian, it must have hurt so badly.”
“Hush, my love.” He placed a kiss to the top of her head.
She gulped back a sob and her body trembled against him. Her sympathy sliced into him. He couldn’t bear being the cause of her emotional pain. He realized how she must have worried. He had left her here in England and remained away without any explanation. He couldn’t bear knowing that he had caused her to suffer that. “It had to be, my love.” He continued to rock her gently. “It had to be that way.”
“It is very hard to understand why, Adrian. I am your wife. I cannot understand how you could keep such devastating secrets from me.”
“I know.” He kissed the top of her head. “I know.”
“If I had lost you, I would die. I would just die.”
“Don’t say that,” he replied, his voice growing hoarse. “I did it all for you. My joy even in my pain knew that you would be safe and that you would be here for Davey.”
“Thank you, my dearest lord, for having committed such a deed on my behalf. I know that you were thinking only of my safety. But what of my happiness? My sanity?” She gulped back a sudden sob. “What if I had lost you?”
“I had no intention of dying, Miranda, believe me.”
“It was just so hard. I thought you might be dead.” She gulped another sob. “It was just so hard.”
He hugged her tighter, feeling his love for her well up in him, so intense it was like pain.
“Tell me what happened in America. Tell me… everything.” The intensity in her voice seemed to vibrate deep within him.
She wanted to know.
She deserved to know.
But he couldn’t tell her.
Not yet.
Telling her would require him to dredge up all those memories of hate and revenge. It would make him harsh and inflexible. He did not wish to be harsh or inflexible yet.
He wanted to indulge in the joy of being with her again. He wanted to give her all the love he had held inside, just for her. He stroked her back.
“Tell me, please,” she repeated.
Sorrow laced through him. He knew he was drawing out her apprehension but he couldn’t help it. “Hush, Miranda, let me love you.” He traced the curve of her waist with his fingertips. “Just let me love you.”
He carried her to the bed, laid her down then stretched out beside her.
I had no hope of ever loving a woman. Not a deep, consuming, passionate love. I didn’t want such a love. I certainly didn’t believe that I needed it. Now she is the only thing that my heart beats for…
He kissed her closed eyelids and whispered his love.
He kissed her mouth, her neck, her breasts, and her belly and whispered his love.
He spread her legs and entered her and moved slowly within her and whispered his to her again and again, as though it were the most precious secret that he couldn’t risk another overhearing.
****
Morning light crept in from a crack in the drapes. Miranda stretched her body lazily. Elation filled her and she placed her lips to his cheek. Adrian’s eyes remained closed. She moved to kiss his lips. He stayed still as a stone. She pressed her lips more passionately to his and yet, he did not awaken. She slipped her hand down his unscathed side.
He grasped her hand.
She cried out with surprise.
He pulled her hand down.
The heat of his rising erection seemed to sear her.
She laughed.
He wrapped her hand about himself.
She tightened her hand and his thick length throbbed within the circle of her fingers and palm. She laughed. “’Tis a fine prize I’ve found for myself this morning.”
“Fine indeed.” He put his hand over hers.
She laughed—a wicked womanly laugh then she rolled part-way on top of him. “I know how to best put it to use,” she said, attempting to roll all the way on top.
He went rigid all over and he held her shoulders. “Miranda, no.”
She froze. “Oh, yes, your injury.” She bent her head, her elation fading somewhat. “I am sorry.”
She released him and then rolled away on her side.
He ran a caressing hand along the curve of her waist and down to her hip.
Awkward silence settled between them.
He lifted the hair off her neck then placed kisses in the hollow beneath her ear. “You still have my interest, my lady.” He pressed his erection against her.
Still mortified at her mistake, she turned her face into the pillow.
He arose from the bed and soon she heard him setting out his shaving gear. Heard the servants come with hot water and then the sloshing sounds of him shaving. The pleasing scent of his shaving soap filled the air. It was an irresistible reminder of her most intimate, erotic moments with him.
It was a seduction.
It lifted her spirits.
She arose from the bed and approached him as he was toweling off his face. He lowered the towel then grinned at her. “My love.” He touched her breast, lingering over the erect nipple.
She ran a hand down his chest and then lowered over his stomach. His erection reared to life again.
She knelt before him…
And started breathing, rapid, short inhalations. She could not stop. Yet, she wasn’t getting any air. She kept gulping and gulping, on her knees, all thoughts of sensuality wiped from her mind. A thousand spiders seemed to crawl over her scalp and down her spine. She was hot, too hot. If only she could draw one good, strong breath.
“Miranda! Miranda!” A touch on her shoulders.
She cried out and backed away, one hand to her throat. She was choking! Choking for breath.
“It’s me, Miranda, Adrian.”
The tenderness of his tone cut into her rising panic. She opened her eyes. He was kneeling beside her, there on the floor. Caressing her neck, her back and speaking words of love. Rocking her body gently.
Gradually her breathing returned to normal. He gathered her into his arms and carried her back to the bed. There he stretched out beside her. She rolled on her, needing to face him. To know that she was with her beloved husband and not lost in some horror from the past. He gently stroked her back.
His tender caresses calmed her more than ever and she closed her eyes with a sigh.
“Why do you do this?” he asked, after a time.
“I-I want… t-to please you.”
“You know how it always ends.”
“I watched them… it seemed so effortless, so loving. I was so certain that—”
He frowned at her, confusion marked on his face. “Watched them?”
She nodded.
“Who?”
“Rebecca and Drake.”
“Drake? What? You watched them…”
She nodded, rapidly. “I watched them do… I mean she took him into her m-mouth.”
He gaped at her.
“It all seemed so very beautiful and I wanted that with you.”
“My God.” He continued to gape at her. “Yo
u watched them? In such an intimate act?”
“Just the once.”
“My God, woman.” He arose from the bed, jerked his shirt on then strode to the window and stared at the rain sheeting down outside.
“Adrian—”
“How could you do such a thing?”
Did she hear sadness in his voice?
“I did it for us.” A lump formed in her throat, making her words grow hoarse.
“For us?”
“Yes.”
“How could you do such a thing? Without even considering my feelings in that matter? And Drake! Christ, woman.”
“Without considering your feelings? What about you?”
He whirled to face her. “Me? You dare accuse me?”
“You left England, knowing what you planned to do and you never told me.” She hugged the sheet to her nakedness.
“I did everything that I did for you.”
“What about if you had been killed? What would Davey have done without his Papa?” Her voice broke on the last word as tears filled her eyes. Tears of rage and pain at his having risked so much.
“You would have been safe.”
“What gave you the right to decide to risk yourself for my sake when you have two sons who depend upon you?”
“Brentwood has made the decision that he no longer needs me. He seems content enough to live with his great uncle, whose side he has taken against me.” Adrian’s voice rang with bitterness.
“That was my fault.”
“It was his decision.”
“He’s just a boy.” Sadness consumed her. “What right did either of us have to decide to plunge him into our scandal?”
“I had the right to decide what was best for all concerned. He will survive rumors and gossip but you would never have survived Winterton’s scheming.”
“I had done so all along.”
“Had you?”
“Yes.”
Adrian shook his head. “No. You did not even know the half of it.”
Miranda sat there, gaping at him, feeling the blood drain from her face as Adrian told her about how Winterton had planned to kill him, to take her protector away. To break her. How he had broken Dorothy, Adrian’s wife’s sister and his long-term mistress and used her to carry out the nefarious plan.
Miranda could barely breathe in the face of so many revelations coming at her so quickly. Her mind spun, trying to make sense of things. But one thing struck her immediately. “What right had you to keep all of that from me?”
“I didn’t want to frighten you. I planned to seek your father out and to challenge him to face me and kill him on the field of honor.”
“But that’s not how it happened and now you face arrest for his murder.” The words tore from her. Her ears burned and she still shook with rage. At him. For all his secrets. Secrets that may well have ripped him from her side.
Forever.
They still might.
He still had to face judgment. Could he possibly escape the hangman’s noose?
He came and took her hands. “Do you think me that witless, Miranda? To just shoot your father like the mad dog he is, within hearing distance of his servants, and think that I could simply walk away unscathed?”
“I don’t know what to think.” She tugged her hands away from his. “You told me that you would only be gone for a couple of months. Then months later, you write to me from Louisiana. Then Mr. Sexton tells me that you have suffered a bad fever and then Drake comes to me and he says—”
“Why don’t you let me tell you exactly what happened?” He recaptured her hand and brought it to his lips, briefly. “Come, let us sit here, together on the bed and I will tell you everything. Would you like some wine before I begin?”
“I think that I had better have some.”
He brought her some wine and she drank, barely tasting the richness of fine claret or the burn as it went down, whilst he donned his trousers.
It seemed as though a thousand pins and needles assailed her. Soon, in moments now, she would hear the complete truth.
Finally.
Would she be able to bear it once she knew?
Her stomach knotted and she gulped down the remainder of her wine.
He returned and took her glass and sat it on the night table. The bed ropes creaked as he sat beside her. She could sense the heaviness in him.
Sensing it only added to her apprehension.
“I did go to America, intending to hunt Winterton down and challenge him. I had to chase him all the way to New Orleans and even then, I missed him by a day. Sexton was with me. He thought that I wanted a tour of America’s port cities. Imagine his dismay when I left New Orleans for Natchitoches. But he did come after me. His father had made him attest that he would watch over me. The senior Sexton did not want to have to answer to Jon should I come to harm.
“I checked into that hotel where Winterton was staying. Hotel? Nay, more like a place where if a man pays enough, no one asks what he is doing. I challenged Winterton. We agreed on pistols, despite the fact that he said he had an aversion towards them ever since that night with your Mama—”
“When I shot him.”
Adrian quickly took her hand. “He deserved it and more, much more, my love.”
“Sexton agreed to train Winterton with the pistols, to work with him to cure his aversion, to make things more sporting, more gentlemanly. I agreed to this. It didn’t matter. I was determined to kill the duke. No amount of training was going to save him from that.” Adrian’s face was set in hard, tight lines, his eyes glowing with relentless intent.
Miranda shivered. She had a fairly good image of what he must have been like in those not-so-distant days.
Grim as death.
And she had a difficult time reconciling that with her image of her gentle, loving husband.
“The night before our appointment, when I was coming back from dining out, I was climbing the stairs and suddenly, I felt what I thought might be a wasp sting—God, Miranda, you should see the size of the wasps and hornets in their country!—then I felt the burning spread through me. The weakness. My feet faltered, it seemed strange, like the wall was moving towards me. Then it was all black.”
“Oh God,” she whispered, sliding closer to him. With her heart in her throat, her chest constricted with pain for his suffering, she touched him.”
He went rigid and flinched away.
He was that consumed with memory. “I awoke in bed with the doctor and Sexton peering down at me. The pain, the bone-racking nausea, it was anguish. And then that doctor told me that I would surely die, within the next two days at most. Despite their abject protestations, I told that doctor to dose me with the most opiate I could stand without losing consciousness. Then I forced myself from that bed and I donned my dressing gown. I went down the corridor to Winterton’s chamber. I was lucky; the man was dead-drunk. The little whore in bed with him screamed, the sound so shrill, it was like to split my ears. And he still did not awaken.”
Miranda’s chest was so tight that she could barely breathe.
“Miranda, I thought I would die, right there at the foot of his bed, my wound had begun to bleed again and I felt myself growing weaker, faint. But I was determined that he would never, ever be a threat to you again. I put the pistol to his nape and I pulled the trigger.” He paused, compressing his lips, his eyes filled with that deadly grimness she had sensed in him earlier. “But I did not die. Somehow. Now, I face the gallows.”
“Oh my love, no.” She shook her head. “They cannot sentence you based on that.”
“Winterton has many powerful allies and my father alienated a good deal of the Mayfair husbands. Both Jon and Drake did assure me that my chances are not good to receive a fair judgment. I understood the sacrifice I was making when I left here. I did it for you. I did it for my sons. To keep all of you safe.” He frowned. “And whilst I was gone, you were sporting with Rebecca and Drake in their bed.”
He put emphasi
s on the Drake’s name.
Her mind was still spinning with all that he had told her. The emotions in his voice still resonating within her heart. She shook her head, trying to clear it and think rationally, to find the correct words to make him understand. “I wasn’t in their bed. I watched from a special mirror, where I could see them and they couldn’t see me.”
“Ah, yes, the tricks of Drake’s dubious trade.” He compressed his mouth, so hard that white showed around his sensual lips. “But Drake knew that you watched?”
“Yes,” she said, her heart pounding, her stomach sicker than ever.
“It was his idea?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Well, how could such a thing have possibly come about?”
“Adrian, please, you don’t—”
He leapt from the bed and began to pace.
“Adrian, please!”
He whirled to face her. “Elucidate me, my lady, how did such a thing possibly come to pass, because I can’t even begin to imagine it.”
“I was upset, I’d had a nightmare about your being dead. I was sick from it. Rebecca found me and took me to the kitchen and we drank. I-I confided all of my fears and worries to her. I ended up telling her about that night with Mama and Winterton and about my dis-distaste for that act. She assured me that I merely had no better memory to compare it to and that if I watched them—”
“My God!” He gaped at her, white-lipped once again.
“She reasoned that if I saw that act performed in a loving fashion that I-I I…” Her voice faltered under his withering glare.
“I don’t understand, Miranda.”
“I am trying to explain!”
“Are you indeed?”
“I am trying hard, to think of how to explain.”
“I did for us. And I am not sorry.”
“You are not?” He gaped at her, disbelief stamped upon his face. “I thought that you had reconciled yourself to leave the courtesan’s life behind. To stop engaging in a courtesan’s ways.”
“It wasn’t like that. Watching them, it was so—”
“Christ, Miranda, have you no shame?”
Sacrifice (Fashionably Impure Book 3) Page 10