More or Less a Countess

by Anna Bradley

  She’d woken him for this? Because she wished to discuss fruit? “Oranges are all very well, but I don’t see what—”

  “Oh, good. Oranges and pineapple, then. I’m fond of pineapple.” She pulled out her sketchbook, which accompanied them on every outing, no matter how brief or inconsequential it might be, and she was forever scribbling in it.

  She wrote something down, and then offered him a beaming smile. “Well, it’s a beginning, at any rate. Will you escort me to the conservatory now? You can tell me more about what you’d like when we’re there.”

  Nick made a rude noise, then lay back down and pulled the blankets over his head. “That’s not necessary, my lady. It will save a great deal of time and fuss if you simply go yourself, and then you can tell me what I want, since that will inevitably be the outcome of this experiment.”

  “If you insist, my lord, of course I’ll leave you to your rest. It’s only…”

  He poked his head up from the nest of blankets, annoyed. “What is it now?”

  “Well, it’s just occurred to me one of the loose panes of glass could come crashing down upon me while I’m wandering about in there. I daresay I’m being foolish, but a number of them are only attached at the corner, you see. But no matter. If one of them should fall on me, I’m certain one of the servants or Lady Westcott will hear it and rescue me before I succumb to a swoon and crack my head on the stone floor.”

  Nick let out a heavy sigh. Damn it, it was bloody nonsense, and she knew it as well as he did. She was no more likely to be hit by a pane of glass than she was to be trampled by a herd of cattle.

  But if the unthinkable should happen, and a broken window should come loose just as she happened to be standing beneath it…

  The panes were heavy—heavy enough to knock a much larger person than his petite wife unconscious, and that was to say nothing of the risk of cuts, or worse, a stabbing, and the conservatory was at one end of the house, far enough from the main rooms it was more than likely no one would hear the sound of shattering glass.

  Nick kicked at his covers and let out a frustrated groan. He may as well do as she asked, because he’d never get another wink of sleep now she’d put that image in his head. “I deserve this, for being foolish enough to take a clever wife.”

  Violet met his irritated grumbling with a pleased smile. “Does that mean you’ll escort me, my lord?”

  “I don’t see I have much choice. I’ll meet you downstairs in the entryway, my lady—unless, of course, you wish to wait here while I dress?”

  He didn’t give her a chance to move or reply, but tossed the coverlet aside and rose from the bed, a slow grin spreading over his lips as her gaze moved over his chest, and then down, down, down…

  “Oh, my.” She gaped at him, her eyes wide, but then she jerked her gaze away with a breathless squeak. “No, no, I—that is, that’s quite all right, my lord. I—ah, I suppose I’ll just leave you to…”

  “What’s the matter, my lady? Not embarrassed, I hope? As I recall, at one point you seemed quite interested in male arousal, and I am your husband, after all. If you insist upon invading a man’s bedchamber while he’s abed, it stands to reason you’ll see bare—and often rigid—flesh.”

  Bright red color suffused her cheeks, and Nick grinned as she scurried out the door like a rabbit with a stolen carrot in its mouth.

  He despised rising with the sun. His retinas were likely permanently damaged, his cock was still hopefully erect and showed no signs of subsiding, and if the truth were told he wasn’t all that fond of oranges, but none of that mattered a whit now.

  It was all worth it.

  For the first time since he’d met her, he’d rendered his wife speechless.

  * * * *

  “It’s rather like a jewel box, isn’t it? Small, but perfect in its own way.”

  Violet tilted her head back to admire the domed ceiling. The conservatory was a bit unusual in that it had been done in a circular design, with oblong panes of glass set into a heavy, ornate cast iron frame.

  The whole of Ashdown Park was rather like this room—simple, but beautiful and unique, and like this little jewel of a room, it only wanted polishing. There was so much for Nick here—so much joy and peace within his grasp, if only he believed he deserved to reach out and take it.

  “Hardly perfect, Lady Dare. At least a dozen panes of glass are shattered.”

  Despite this denial, Nick’s voice was thoughtful. Oh, he’d been surly enough for the first hour or so, but as they’d strolled around the conservatory he’d forgotten himself enough to relax, and a slight smile had been hovering at the corner of his lips ever since. It had been days since she’d seen even a ghost of a smile on his face, and Violet’s heart leapt with hope.

  “My father wanted to build my mother a great monstrosity of a conservatory,” he went on, “but she never wanted anything sprawling or extravagant—just something simple and beautiful to grow her flowers.”

  “What kind of flowers did she prefer?”

  “Gardenias, jasmine, myrtle—the usual sort of thing. She wanted to add arching trellises following the roof line so she could grow climbing vines.” He pointed up at the curved ceiling. “But she died before it could be done.”

  Violet hesitated, but he’d never spoken of his mother to her before, and she couldn’t let this opportunity escape her. “How old were you when she died?”

  He was quiet for a moment, and she thought he might not reply, but then he sighed. “Nine. Graham was eleven. After she died, my father refused to ever set foot in this room again, and you see what happened. Shattered glass and withered plants.”

  Shattered hearts, withered dreams…

  Violet glanced up at the broken panes of glass, at their jagged edges glittering in the sun. The glass wasn’t the only thing that had been shattered when the previous Lady Dare died.

  She went over to the table where she’d left her sketchbook and pencil, sat down, and drew a few hasty lines. “Trellises like this, you mean?”

  Nick crossed the room and peered over her shoulder. “Something like that, yes.” He sounded surprised.

  She sketched in another dozen or so lines, murmuring to him as she drew. “The vines could be planted in containers below. It would take no time at all for them to climb the trellis. Once they grew in, it would be like having a separate little garden above your head. As for the rest of it…” Violet waved a hand around the room. “Broken glass is easily repaired, and we can plant new flowers. We could have gardenia, if you like, and jasmine, just as your mother did.”

  Nick didn’t reply. He wandered to one end of the room and stood there for a long time, his arms crossed over his chest, staring out into the garden. Violet could only see his profile, but he didn’t look angry. He looked…wistful.

  Her breath caught as she gazed at him. The light pouring down from the roof set fire to the strands of auburn hidden in his dark hair and emphasized his strong jaw and the sensuous curve of his lower lip.

  Quietly, Violet turned to a blank page in her book and began to sketch him, taking care to make certain every line and every curve of his face was true, so when she showed the sketch to him, he could see himself as she saw him. Not as a selfish rake, but as the man he was—a man of strength and compassion, yet always with that hint of sadness about him, of wounds not quite healed.

  Those wounds, that trace of grief in his eyes he’d likely carry with him always…

  Did he understand they only made him more beautiful?

  “Everything seems different when I see it as you see it.”

  Violet’s pencil stilled on the page, and she slowly raised her gaze to him.

  He wasn’t looking at her—he was still staring out the window, as if he were watching something she couldn’t see. “It was that way in London, too.” The perfect curve of his lips softened with a faint smile. “
Burial grounds, gibbets, ghosts…” He shook his head. “I never would have believed there was more than one way to see those things, but I was wrong.”

  Violet hesitated, unsure what to do. They were the first kind words he’d spoken to her since their disastrous wedding night, and she was afraid to disturb the quiet tenderness of the moment, but at the same time she’d waited weeks for him to offer her even the smallest opening, and she couldn’t let her fear stand in the way of taking it.

  She closed her sketchbook, laid it aside, and went and stood before him, close enough so her body brushed against his. She didn’t speak, but lay her hands on his chest, gazed into his extraordinary gray eyes, and hoped with all her heart he’d see the truth in hers.

  He stared down at her, searching her face. “Seeing things as you see them, looking at every moment as a possibility, as another chance to be delighted…it feels like waking up from a drugged sleep. It feels like breathing again.”

  Violet didn’t move, and she didn’t breathe. She only looked into his eyes, a silent prayer hidden on her lips.

  Please let him see, let him understand…

  He trailed a finger down her cheek and rested it under her chin. Violet didn’t make a sound until his lips brushed over hers, then a long, deep sigh escaped her.

  His mouth was soft at first, gentle, but when he stroked his tongue over her bottom lip and she opened for him without hesitation, he sank his hands in her hair to hold her still to take her mouth over and over again, his kiss desperate.

  Violet whimpered in dismay when he drew away, but before she could bring his mouth back to hers he trailed his lips over her neck to kiss her throat. His chest heaved with his panting breaths as he slid his hands from her hair to tear at the buttons on the back of her dress. He loosened them with shaking fingers, then tugged her bodice down to kiss and nip her collarbones and the smooth skin of her chest.

  He nipped and licked at her until her knees went so weak she had to grip his hair to keep herself from collapsing. “Please…”

  He was kissing the tops of her breasts, his mouth ravenous against her damp flesh. “Do you want me, Violet?” He eased the muslin lower, groaning when the pink of her nipples appeared. “Tell me.”

  “I want you.” Kissing him, touching him…it felt like drowning and surfacing at the same time, and Violet wrapped her arms around his neck to keep from being swept away.

  “Who am I, Violet?” His voice was a low growl in her ear. “Who’s kissing you, touching you right now? Say my name.”

  “Nick…” The word left her lips on a sob.

  He tore his mouth from hers, grasped her shoulders, and held her away from him so he could see her face. “Who do you belong to? Say it, Violet.”

  She took his face in her hands. “You, Nick. Only you.”

  A low groan shuddered through him, and he took her mouth harder then, as if he sought to punish her with his tongue and lips, but his hands were careful as he touched her, his fingers gentle as he tangled them in her hair, and for one breathless moment she understood him as surely as if she’d caught a glimpse inside his heart.

  This man she’d wounded so deeply, whose heart she’d been so careless with—he’d never punish her. He’d never try to hurt her in return. It wasn’t who he was, but she…oh, God, she’d been so unfair to him, so hurtful, and her heart swelled with the need to take that hurt away. She had to make him understand she loved him, had never loved anyone but him.

  Words began to pour from her lips in an incoherent rush. “You…you’re more to me than everything, Nick…more than anyone. No one has ever…not Lord Derrick, no one but you—”

  He’d buried his face between her breasts and was sucking at the tender skin there, but her words made him freeze, and in the next moment he yanked her bodice up to cover her, then pushed away from her.

  “Nick?” Violet opened her eyes, dazed, her heart thudding in her chest.

  “You dare to say his name to me?” His face was white, his voice shaking. “You dare to say his name to me while I’m holding you in my arms, touching you? While I’m thinking of nothing but you, you’re thinking of him?”

  Violet stared at him in horror as it dawned on her she’d made a terrible mistake. “No—Nick, no. I could never…I’m sorry. I only wanted you to know there’s no one else I’ve ever—”

  “No one? Come now, Lady Dare. We both know that’s not true.”

  She grabbed his arm, her grip frantic. “It is true. It’s been true from the moment I met you. Please, Nick.” She curled her fingers into his coat. “The drawings—I don’t see you that way now. I…”

  She wanted to tell him she loved him. The declaration hovered on her lips, but his eyes had hardened into cold gray stones, and Violet knew it wouldn’t be enough. He wouldn’t believe her. Why should he? She’d lied to him and hurt him, and a few whispered words weren’t going to change that.

  He jerked his arm out of her grasp. “Of course you see me that way, sweetheart. Why shouldn’t you? ‘The Selfish Rake.’ It’s what I am.”

  “No! You were never that. I never should have—”

  “Not much of a rake now, I grant you. I can’t even make love to my own wife.” He let out a bitter laugh. “Ironic, isn’t it? But even so, I’m not quite the paragon Lord Derrick is.”

  There was a long pause while they stared at each other in silence, but then Violet shook her head. “No, Nick,” she whispered. “This isn’t about Lord Derrick. It never has been.”

  “No?” He gave a harsh laugh. “Who, then? Are you in love with another man, in addition to Lord Derrick?”

  Violet’s gaze never left his face. What she was about to say to him…oh, she didn’t want to say it. It would hurt him, and she’d already hurt him so much.

  But it had to be said, and it had to be said by her. His wife.

  “None of this is about Lord Derrick, Nick. It’s about Graham. When you say you’re not Lord Derrick, what you really mean is you’re not Graham. But I don’t want a man like Graham, or one like Lord Derrick. I only want you.”

  He stared down at her, his throat working, his face growing paler by the second, and then without a word he shoved past her, leaving her alone in the conservatory.

  Violet stood quietly for a long time after he left, but she was still shaking when she made her way back over to the bench and sank down onto it. Her eyes slid closed, and her head sank into her hands.

  But she didn’t let herself stay there for long.

  When she’d wanted to finish her book she’d schemed and plotted and lied to get it done. Would she do less now, when the stakes were so much higher? If she wanted Nick to forgive her—if she wanted him to give up his plan to flee to the Continent, to abandon her for his Italian mistress—she had to do better than this.

  She had to show him she loved him.

  Violet raised her head, and her gaze fell on her sketchbook. She dragged it closer and began to turn the pages one by one, her hands trembling.

  It was filled with drawings of Nick. Dozens of them.

  Nick, his hair wet and his cheeks flushed, mounted on an enormous black stallion, his expression earnest as he pointed toward some distant fields. Nick, firelight flickering on his face, a glass of port dangling carelessly between his fingers. Nick in his bed, blankets twisted around his hips, his chest bare, his hair disheveled, and dark stubble shadowing his jaw.

  Violet straightened her shoulders and rose from the bench, her lips pressed together with determination.

  This courtship had just begun.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Once Violet determined Nick hadn’t left the house, it wasn’t difficult to figure out where he’d gone. As she mounted the stairs to his bedchamber, she tried to persuade herself to consider the scene in the conservatory from her usual practical angle, but her heart sank lower with each step.

  Fo
r the first time since she’d arrived at Ashdown Park, her optimism was threating to give way to hopeless exhaustion. Nick desired her, but he didn’t trust her, and he wasn’t any closer to forgiving her than he’d been when he’d first discovered those sketches. Nearly a fortnight had passed, and he still refused to talk to her, or allow her to talk to him.

  Perhaps he never would. Perhaps her marriage had ended the very day it began, and nothing she could ever do or say would earn his forgiveness.

  The thought made Violet’s shoulders sag with fatigue, and as she slipped into her bedchamber, she let her gaze wander longingly to her bed. How easy it would be to give in to the need to sink down onto it and lose herself in a dreamless sleep. How peaceful to forget, if only for a little while, the icy disdain on her husband’s face right before he’d left her alone in the conservatory.

  She didn’t yield to the temptation, but squared her shoulders and crossed the room to the connecting door. She raised her hand to knock, but before her fist met the wood, she paused.

  If she knocked, he’d only send her away.

  Violet squeezed her eyes closed, wrapped her hand around the knob, and twisted. Her eyes flew open in surprise when it turned obligingly in her palm.

  Nick hadn’t shut her out.

  The unlocked door—it must mean he wanted her to come after him, mustn’t it? Oh, if only he’d give her a chance! If only he’d look at her, and truly see her. He need only look into her eyes to believe he was the only man who’d ever held her heart.

  Violet eased the door open, hope flaring in her breast for the first time in weeks…

  Only to sputter and die again when she stepped into Nick’s bedchamber.

  It was dark—as dark as if the sun had never risen this morning.

  He’d drawn the heavy drapes over the windows to shut out the light, and Violet blinked in the sudden dimness. Was he here? Perhaps Gibbs was mistaken, and Nick had ridden out after all—

  “Get out.”

  She jerked her head toward the voice, and after a moment her eyes adjusted enough so she could make out Nick’s solid bulk on the bed. He’d pulled the coverlet over him, and it was clear from his tone he didn’t intend to crawl out from underneath it anytime soon.