“Do you require a shave, my lord?” Belton asked, above his head.
“No, thank you,” Marcus said automatically.
“Clothes, my lord?” The butler’s voice held the tiniest shade of disapproval now.
“Thank you,” Marcus said automatically.
“A horse, my lord?” Now the butler’s voice held a definite message. Marcus looked up.
“A horse?”
Belton almost glared. “A horse, my lord.”
A light leaped into Marcus’s eyes at the same moment that hope surged in his heart. Why not? He had to try.
“Yes, I will have a horse made ready to travel, please, Belton,” he said. “A fast one.”
Belton’s lips twitched into the faintest of satisfied smiles. Marcus recognized this as a sign of approval. “At once, my lord,” the butler said.
Part 2—Seduction
Salterton, July 1816
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE DEBT WAS PAID and if Marcus kept his word, she was free.
If Isabella Stockhaven had been the type of woman to confide in a bosom-bow, which she emphatically was not, she might have vouchsafed the fact that her experience of love at the hands of her husband the previous night had been outstanding. It was true that she did not have a great deal of experience with which to compare Marcus’s lovemaking. Sleeping with Ernest had been like being squashed by a wardrobe that still had the key in the door. But Marcus…Well, anyone who could make her tingle and quiver and melt with such absolute pleasure and longing had to be a master of the art. It had been a perfect wedding night in all respects but one.
Her husband did not love her.
Isabella was running away as fast as she could. It was not Marcus that she was running from. She was trying to outrun her own emotions. Yet she knew that no matter how she denied it, she carried those feelings with her every step of the way. There was no escape.
She was in love with Marcus Stockhaven.
She had never stopped loving him.
She had told Marcus almost the entire truth the previous night, leaving out only the closest and most painful secret, her doubts over Emma’s parentage. She had hesitated over this, too, wanting a clean sheet, but in the end she had not spoken because what good would it do? Emma was dead now and the anguish put behind her. Isabella never wanted to face the devastation of losing a child ever again. She did not want to love and she did not dare to pray for children. Once again she locked the thoughts and the feelings away.
Even without exposing that deepest of secrets, though, the disclosures had been exhausting and costly. She had opened her heart to Marcus and it had hurt when he had rejected her explanations. Today she was tired and her feelings were rubbed raw. The journey gave her plenty of time to think. To think about the matters that she had talked about with Marcus and to think about her seduction.
For she had been seduced, swept up in a maelstrom of sensation that had left no room for rational thought, as much by her own desires as by Marcus’s. Her need for him had been as strong as his for her. She faced the thought squarely. She had wanted him. She wanted him still.
Marcus’s rough anxiety as he made love to her had lit something in her, a longing that was irresistible. A part of her had never wanted to resist him anyway. Isabella trembled with the memory. It was so long since she had felt like that. She had almost forgotten. She had wanted to forget. It was a lifetime; she had been a different person then.
To be held in Marcus’s arms, to kiss him, touch him, hold him to her, was like coming home. She had been swamped by the profundity of her love for him. She had felt him inside her and her body had leaped in response but even as he’d taken her with him down that swirling, painful, blissful spiral of passion, her heart had been torn with a mixture of love and fear, for this was what she wanted but it still felt all wrong and until Marcus loved her again it could never be right.
Afterward he had held her close and had fallen asleep at once. In the faint light he had looked young and his face was rubbed clean of all anger and bitterness and hatred. Her stomach had lurched with a combination of love and misery as she had looked on him and she had entwined herself in his arms, trying to block out the painful thoughts that battered her tired mind.
It had not worked.
They had achieved physical intimacy but she felt further from Marcus than ever. He did not love her. She had told him the truth in the hope that it would ease the mistrust between them. Instead she was left with an emptier feeling than before. It was as though she had gambled all on a single throw of the dice and it had not turned up the result that she desired. There was honesty between them, there was a physical closeness now that both tormented and pleasured her, but it had brought no love with it. It had never occurred to her in all the tangle of her feelings for Marcus that she had a rival for his love. Now she wondered how she could have been so blind.
What about India? Marcus had said, and for a second she had wondered at the irrelevance of his question. That was before she had seen the anger and the loyalty and the passion in his eyes and had felt her heart sink through her velvet slippers. India. Of course. India was the one that Marcus had married. India had held his love and his loyalty then and she still had it now. Isabella knew that Marcus might want her, with that desperate, aching need that she felt, too, but that was a vastly different matter from the feelings he had had for his first wife.
It hurt to think of Marcus loving India. It had hurt her the previous night and it hurt now. It had been a shock when he had sprung it on her. Now it was a dull ache inside. She felt so foolish not to have thought of it. Her pride was humbled that she had believed his passion had only ever been for her.
Sleep had been impossible. As soon as it was light she had called for the carriage and taken the road south through the sleeping city. She had packed in haste and had left orders for the servants to follow her to Salterton with due speed. Then she had taken a last look at Marcus’s sleeping form and had walked away.
Beyond Richmond, the countryside unrolled into a patchwork of fields, hedges, woods and villages on every side. The road was good. It was another glorious sunny day. Isabella tried to doze but it was no use; her thoughts spun like a top.
The carriage rumbled over cobbles and came to rest in an inn yard, rousing her from her torpor. Another stop. Change the horses, gulp down scalding coffee…
“Where are we?” Isabella asked.
“The Golden Farmer Inn at Bagshot, my lady.”
Late in the afternoon they passed the junction where the road to Exeter turned west and they took the southern route to Winchester. Isabella had a very specific place in mind to stay the night. The town’s hostelries and hotels were not for her, but on the outskirts, under the ancient walls, was an even more ancient inn called the Ostrich. It had once been a hospice run by the monks and although it had passed into secular hands after the dissolution of the monasteries, it had been bought by a private religious order some fifty years before. The monks of St. Jerome brewed their own mead, made their own medicine and offered hospitality to travelers. The Standishes had stayed there many times when traveling to Salterton. Lady Standish had considered a monastic establishment to have the appropriate ton for one of her genteel standing. Now Isabella was choosing it for a different reason, for what could be more suitable for a lady journeying alone? One would always find safe haven in a monastery.
The town was busy, for it was the week of the old summer horse fair and market, and St. Jerome’s was almost full of visitors. One of the brothers greeted her with a refreshingly cool tankard of mead—the road had been dusty and the weather increasingly hot as the day progressed. Isabella had a strong thirst and as few inhibitions about ladies drinking alcoholic beverages as she had of them traveling alone. Her single portmanteau, thrown together in such a hurry, was taken to a room on the first floor that overlooked the orchard. There was an ewer of cool water for washing and crisp linen on the narrow bed. Having made certain that her coachman and
groom had suitable accommodation, Isabella retired to her room, lay down and closed her eyes. After a little while, the scent of roasting meat began to creep into the room and she opened her eyes, realizing that she felt sharp set. A little while after that, there was a knock at the door and an inn servant appeared bearing a tray groaning under the weight of food. Isabella began to remember what a gem of a place The Ostrich was.
In the evening she read by the light of a candle while the hum of the busy streets echoed around her and eventually, despite the noise and the light night, she fell asleep over her book.
It was dark when she awoke and she knew instantly that something had disturbed her. Someone was turning the doorknob very gently. It made a tiny click and then a sliver of light appeared at the bottom of the door. Isabella tensed.
The door opened wider and Isabella groped silently over the side of the bed to find the chamber pot. Her fingers closed over its cold porcelain edge and she clung on for dear life. She had traveled widely and knew what to do in situations like this. It was a question of strike first and ask questions later. She could scream, of course, but strangely she found that she had inhibitions about doing that in a monastery.
A dark figure slipped through the doorway, closing the door gently behind him. He approached the bed softly. Isabella swung the chamber pot around in an arc, rolling over and bringing her arm round so that the pot made contact against the side of the intruder’s head with a reverberating crack. He groaned and staggered sideways.
“And let that be a lesson to you not to go creeping into ladies’ bedrooms in the night!” Isabella snapped.
“The message is duly received and understood,” the man said wryly, rubbing his head. “I swear never to do it again—at least not without your permission.”
Isabella sat bolt upright, her heart thumping not from surprise now but from fear. “Marcus? What on earth are you doing here?”
She grasped the tinderbox and struck a light. The candle flared. Isabella’s hand shook slightly. This was most unexpected and disturbing. She had thought that she would have plenty of time before she was obliged to see Marcus again—if she were to see him at all. A legal separation could have been achieved working through Mr. Churchward. So could the formal deed of gift giving her Salterton. There would have been no need for them to meet one another ever again.
Marcus sat down heavily on the end of the narrow bed. “Not a particularly warm welcome,” he said ruefully.
“What are you doing here?” Isabella demanded. “How did you know where to find me? I told no one where I was staying, so that you…”
A smile curled Marcus’s lips. It made her feel prickly with sensual heat. It conjured the memories of the previous night. His hands against her skin, his lips at her breast, the friction of his body against hers…Isabella fidgeted and looked away.
“You told no one so that I would not know where to find you?” Marcus queried.
“Precisely,” Isabella said.
Marcus laughed. “I followed you along the road,” he said. “You are not exactly inconspicuous, Isabella.”
“Why bother to follow me at all?” Isabella argued. Her nervousness was intensifying now. “There was no need. You had your wedding night. Now it is your turn to keep your word.”
Marcus was silent for a moment. His face was dark and expressionless in the candlelight.
“I could not let you go like that,” he said at length.
Isabella’s heart thumped. “What do you mean?”
Marcus shifted. He looked uncomfortable. “I had to talk to you.” A shadow touched his face. “Isabella, I am sorry. I wanted you last night and I thought that you wanted me, too. It was never my intention to force myself on you.” He paused, then added with scrupulous honesty, “At least…at the start, perhaps I did not care. But I would never take you against your will.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I am sorry that I drove you away.”
He had misunderstood her reasons for running away, Isabella realized. She had been intent on putting the distance between them because she could not have borne to awaken in the morning and hear the stark words that he was leaving her. But he had assumed that she had run away because she had been repelled by their lovemaking. He was looking unbearably contrite and, to her surprise, she felt the hot color flood her face. She felt tongue-tied. “Let us not speak of it.”
“Why not? We are husband and wife.”
Isabella’s throat dried. Never in her life had she discussed intimate matters with anyone, least of all her husband. She examined her feelings and realized that she was embarrassed.
Marcus put a hand under her chin and turned it to the light.
“You are shy,” he said, a note of surprise in his voice.
Isabella slapped his hand away. “No, I am not!”
“Yes, you are. I can see it in your eyes.”
Isabella looked at him fleetingly and then away. “I am not accustomed to speaking on such subjects,” she said with a little difficulty.
She expected Marcus to make some mocking remark, but he was silent, rubbing his head absentmindedly where she had hit him. She put out a tentative hand.
“Did I hurt you?”
He captured her hand and held it. “Yes. But as I said, it was no more than I deserved. Isabella—” His voice changed. “Why did you run away? Was it because of what happened between us?”
Isabella swallowed hard. She felt a wrench of mingled hope and despair.
“Marcus,” she said. “I would not wish you to think…” She stopped. This was very difficult but honesty compelled her to tell the truth. “I wanted you, too,” she said at last, very simply. “I wanted you so much that I almost forgot all that lay between us. But then I remembered and—” she shrugged tiredly “—I realized it was too late for us. It did not feel right. It can never be right again.”
Marcus looked at her. His eyes were very clear. “I am glad,” he said. “Not glad that you think it too late for us, but glad that I was not pressing my attentions on an unwilling lady.”
Isabella freed her hand. This was becoming too difficult and too dangerous. The intimacy that she had wanted the previous night was creeping into the candlelit room, but it was too late. He had not said one word about believing her explanation of what had happened all those years ago. He had not asked for forgiveness of his suspicions or for his behavior. He had not said that he loved her and for her the restoration of trust was more important than any physical intimacy.
“It must surely have been clear to you that I was not exactly unwilling,” she said.
Marcus smiled. “I thought not at the time, but when I woke and found you gone…” He shook his head.
“I left because that was what we had agreed,” Isabella said starkly. “You had what you wanted and in return you agreed to give me Salterton—and a legal separation. We made a bargain, you and I. I expect you to keep it.”
Marcus’s gaze was searching, examining her face in minute detail. Isabella was very afraid that he would read the truth in her heart.
“Did you make love with me merely to keep your half of the bargain?” There was an odd tone in his voice.
“No,” Isabella said reluctantly, “but that is not the point, Marcus. The things I want from you—” She stopped. Love. Trust. They carried with them their own risks and she had been hurt so much she was not sure she could face that pain again.
“We agreed,” she said finally.
“Do you really want a legal separation, Isabella?” Marcus was quiet but very determined.
Isabella refused to meet his eyes. “It is what we agreed.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Isabella let go a painful breath. “It is the only way.” She threw out one hand in a gesture of despair. “What else can we do, Marcus? We cannot go back. We cannot change the past. It will always lie between us.”
Marcus was silent for a moment. “We will not go back,” he said at last, “but we can go on.” His tone softened. “I d
o not want to leave you, Isabella, and I do not want you to leave me. I cannot allow that—not now.”
Isabella felt trapped and frustrated. “Twice now you have broken your word to me.”
“You might be carrying my child.”
The words fell into silence. Isabella closed her eyes briefly. In the heat of the moment she had not really considered it. It was a very long time since she had had to think of such matters. Now she thought of Emma and her heart was wrenched with so much pain that she gasped.
“No! Oh, no.”
She saw something change in Marcus’s expression and knew he was hurt at the implication of her words. He did not understand. He could not.
She waited for his bitter rejoinder but instead he touched her hand where it was clenched on the bedclothes. “I am sorry, Isabella. I know it would not be what you wanted. But I assume it must be a possibility, and until we know…”
When she did not reply, he sighed.
“We will talk on this again in the morning. Now is not the right time. You look exhausted and so am I, for I have ridden hard to find you.” He bent to pull his boots off.
Isabella nervously drew the bedclothes up to her chin, a more pressing concern taking the place of the anguish inside her.
“What are you doing?”
Marcus smiled at her, a warm and wicked smile that lit his dark eyes. “I am coming to bed, of course.”
Isabella gulped. “But…Have you not heard what I have been saying? There is no going back for us, Marcus, and that begins now. Surely the brothers have some alternative accommodation for you?”
Marcus looked at her. His expression was unreadable in the candlelight. He was still rubbing his head and the dark hair stood up in rather endearing spikes. Isabella ignored the urge to reach out and smooth it down.
“There is no room at the inn, Isabella,” he said. “When Brother Jerome heard that I was your husband, the monks suggested that we share this chamber.”
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