by Sophia James
And afterwards he knelt between her legs and used his mouth to soothe her, to cool her, to sup at the well of womanhood as only a husband could do, healing the anger, accepting the past.
A lesson in loving that wrapped about her heart. Pain had many names, she thought, and one of them was Lucien. If she ever lost him again, she would die.
* * *
She woke in the night late and disorientated. Lucien stood against the windows, looking out, though he turned as soon as he perceived her watching him. His body looked like a statue of burnished marble, an erection stiff against the moonlight.
When she joined him he came into her from behind, their reflection surreal. It was cold against the glass, her breasts against the shiny hardness making each nipple bud. He did not hurry, either, but changed the rhythm of his penetration just as she was getting used to the last one. To lengthen the timings. To heighten the need.
‘Please?’ she whispered.
‘Wait,’ he said.
‘Now?’
‘Soon.’
And then it was there, intense and fragile, the wrenching truth of the together plucked from apartness as she felt his seed within and his teeth at her neck.
‘I love you, Alejandra.’ The words shivered across her nakedness and fell into the dark.
* * *
‘How did you ever find me in that prison in Madrid, Lucien?’
It was almost dawn and the few hours of sleep they had managed was enough to allow them comfort.
‘I knew the French used the place for interrogations and I’d found an old copy of the plans in the reading room on the Paseo de Recoletos. I was there every day waiting for you to come, so I had a good many hours to look.’
‘You thought I would be caught?’
‘Well, if I had heard the rumours of a woman who stole the French secrets, then I was certain the French would soon be likely to, as well. Nothing is sacred in the cut-throat world of espionage and so I felt it would pay to be prepared.’
‘It was still a risk. Even with all that preparedness.’
‘A risk I am glad I took.’
‘I thought I would die. I thought they would rape me, too. I was not at all certain that when they did I could keep quiet, either.’
‘You might be surprised at that. After a certain amount of pain it all begins to feel the same.’
‘It was like that with your back? The scars are fierce still.’
He laughed. ‘I do not even have the inclination to remember them, Alejandra. It is finished with, that time, and I am thankful.’
‘Only now?’
‘England is a quiet place and many here don’t like to be reminded of the chaos in other lands. I have not shown anyone save the doctor my scars.’
At that she laughed. ‘Your sister and Amethyst were not particularly worried to see the remnants of the wound on my thigh.’
‘They each have their own skeletons, though. It is those who have never been touched by strife or war who make the most fuss.’
‘Juan tied me to a horse and dragged me around a field. The root of a tree gouged my leg.’
The shockingness of it fell into the room like a stone, but she wanted to tell him of it all. He deserved to know.
‘I was too independent, he said. Too inclined to do what I wanted. He needed me submissive and docile. My father found me in the back room of Juan’s house. The wound had festered badly, you see, and I suppose Juan was ashamed of being such a bully. He did not allow anyone near me and I got sicker and sicker.’
‘Then I am glad you are a good shot. The bastard deserved what was coming to him.’
‘Tomeu gave me the gun. It was my job to see him punished, not my father’s.’
‘I knew I liked him.’
Alejandra snuggled into the warmth of her husband. ‘You see, that is why I love you. You allow me to be me.’
Reaching over, she picked up the rosary from the bedside table and cradled it in her hands. ‘I shall say a Hail Mary for Juan Betancourt and forgive him because otherwise...’
‘You never forget.’
‘Will they accept me, do you think, as your wife? Those in society, I mean. I should not wish to make it difficult for you to go to London.’
He shrugged his shoulders and laughed. ‘After last night, Alejandra, nothing you could ever do would make it difficult for me.’
* * *
He couldn’t get enough of her—that was the trouble. He could barely breathe properly when he was away from her and the duties of his earldom and manufacturing business had called him to London three days this week alone.
Their nights were what he lived for, losing himself inside of her, two becoming one as the long summer nights shortened and the first coolness of autumn appeared.
Tonight they had walked to the lake that stood in front of Linden Park and made love in the boathouse at the end of the pier. With the water lapping around them and the moonlight on Alejandra’s naked body, Lucien brought her on to his lap and wrapped the blanket around them both, her legs to each side of him.
A quiet coupling, watching each other as the rhythm quickened, seeing the love in her eyes and the smile on her lips.
She was so very beautiful, her breasts moving with his pushes as nipples tightened by want. Soon he would suck them and she would whisper into his hair with soft words of Spanish. Protecting him. Wanting him.
He wondered what it would be like when her breasts were filled with milk and her belly lay swollen with babe. He wanted lots of babies, lots of family, the final expression of their love made physical. But even if they could not conceive he would be happy. With her.
When he smiled she saw it.
‘You are happy?’
‘I am,’ he returned.
‘With this?’ she questioned, tipping her hips.
‘Are you?’
‘In the brothel I felt sick every time I would have to go into the room of a French soldier, to search his clothing, just in case something went wrong.’
‘Did that ever happen?’
She shook her head.
‘But with you...with you I don’t think.’
‘You just feel. This and this.’
‘And this,’ she added, her tongue winding around the lobe of his ear and down to the nape.
Chapter Fifteen
‘There is a problem, Luce.’ Daniel leant forward in the leather wing chair where they were tucked into an alcove in one corner of White’s on St James’s Street a month or so after the wedding.
Lucien frowned and finished his drink. ‘What is it?’
‘The brother of Sir Mark Walters has been telling all who will listen that you cohabited together outside of wedlock as you travelled from Bournemouth to London.’
‘And how does he know this?’
‘He was there as you landed from Spain, Luce, and he recognised you. It seems he is an artist of sorts and fashioned a drawing. A picture has just been published in a tatty broadsheet and it has had numerous reprints.’
‘Do you have it?’ Suddenly Lucien knew exactly what the problem would be. Alejandra had been dressed in her lad’s clothes as he had carried her to the conveyance at the dockside because her foot was too sore to walk.
‘I do.’ Daniel brought forth a sheet of paper and unfolded it, the faded lines taking nothing away from the rendering.
‘Hell.’
The drawing was every bit as damning as Lucien thought it might be and it was verified as the truth by Viscount Radford, a man who held no love for the Howard family.
‘Damned if I admit this and damned if I don’t? Can it blow over?’
Daniel laughed. ‘Everything can eventually blow over, I suppose, but the fact that you might spend the next years as outcasts is one you might consider. Especially if you have children.’
‘Has Amethyst seen this?’
‘She has. She said when she was vilified by the ton over the furore of her first husband she was glad we all stood together. You are surr
ounded by friends with lofty titles, Lucien. Perhaps you should use us.’
‘Beard the lion in his lair, you mean?’
‘Your sister can have us all looking most presentable and Gabriel has already sent out the invites to his ball. A venue, so to speak, that is neutral and sympathetic. He could make certain the doubters are there.’
Leaning back, Lucien pulled his hands through his hair. ‘I don’t know if Alejandra is ready for this. If she is vilified anyway...’
‘Then you are in exactly the same position as you are now and at least you will know what you are up against.’
‘I’d like to hit Walters and Radford right now. Hard.’
‘Which would be playing right into their hands and everyone will think it true.’
Daniel was right. He had to be cleverer than that. He had to laugh at the accusation in such a way that people would begin to question its validity. Alejandra looked less and less like the girl he had found again in a Madrid brothel and more and more like the well-born lady that she was.
If they all stood together, it might work.
He just had to convince his wife that the charade was actually worth it.
* * *
Alejandra was sick when he arrived home from the city and lying on the bed in their room, a cold flannel across her brow and the curtains drawn.
He had never seen her look so lifeless before and pulled up a chair in front of her. Had she heard the rumours already? He was pleased when she smiled and sat up, her arms wrapping about his neck.
‘I missed you, but I think I must have eaten something last night that did not agree with me for I have not been feeling well. How was your day?’
‘I saw Daniel at my club.’
She frowned and pulled back. ‘Is there something wrong, Lucien?’
‘This.’ Leaning back, he took the broadsheet with their likenesses from his bag and laid it out on her knees.
‘He is an accomplished artist, unfortunately, Mr Frank Walters, the man who drew this. If he’d been less talented, it may not have mattered. His friend Viscount Radford is verifying his story and he is the son of a man who felt my father duped him in a business venture.’
‘And it does? Matter, I mean?’
‘I’m not sure. If we do nothing, it might just go away.’
‘Or it might not?’ She took his hand in hers and he liked the warmth. ‘So you think attack is the better option? It’s fight or flee?’
Lucien laughed. ‘Nothing that dramatic, thank goodness. He can’t touch us here in Kent, but...the ton has strict punishments for those who might flout their rules, Alejandra, and premarital sex is one of the big ones.’
‘But we didn’t... Not that time...’ She blushed and stopped.
‘You were unchaperoned. That is enough. If we do go to Gabriel’s ball, though, as we had planned to, Daniel and the others will stand with us.’
‘In support, you mean?’
‘With my family title and with the Hughes’ and the Wyldes’ and St Cartmails’ support, too, it might well be enough to put this to bed so to speak. Besides, we are married now and so as a scandal it is not as juicy as the one that would have ensued if we were not.’
‘How many people will be there?’
‘Most of the ton, I should imagine. Gabe has a wide and varied circle of friends.’
‘I thought you said they did not go about in society much?’
‘They don’t. This is the first ball I have ever been to at the Hughes family home.’
The warmth of her skin drew him closer and he pulled off his boots and jacket and joined her on the bed. With Alejandra’s head against his chest and his arms about her shoulders he felt whole again, the ride home from London worrying and long.
‘I wanted to be home,’ he said after a moment or two. ‘It seems when I leave you all I can think about is when I am coming back.’
At that she pushed herself up and faced him directly, her hands around the sides of his head and a smile on her face that held more than humour. ‘I have been waiting for you, my love, and it has been a long day. Shall we shorten it?’
Her fingers went to the fall of his trousers and undid the buttons, and then the warmth of her fingers was against his flesh.
‘Whatever happens out there in the world will never harm us, Alejandra. I promise you that.’
‘I know,’ she replied and then her full lips came down across him.
* * *
The next morning Alejandra felt a little better, though she was worried and shocked by the drawing and by such a blatant attack on their relationship. Lucien’s mother and she were just starting to be civil to one another, the deathly silence that she had endured since coming to England finally punctuated by one or two warm smiles. What would an older lady think of this now? She felt for the rosary in her pocket and ran the beads through her fingers, asking for guidance.
They would have to chance on a good outcome from Gabriel and Adelaide’s ball. She knew they would have to because otherwise there would always be whisperings and conjecture. After a life of such things she wanted only harmony and peace, to just fit in here without troubles and gossip.
Lucien beside her was still asleep, the dawn light across his hair marking it with gold. They had woken in the night and made love again, so the bedding was tousled and heaped about them and she felt wanton and languid.
With care she traced the line of his cheek and he woke immediately turning towards her, his pale eyes focusing into alertness as he spoke. ‘For many years I have come from slumber into hardship and now...now all I have is beauty.’ He reached for her hair and slid his fingers down the length of it. ‘I’m glad it’s no longer red.’
‘I hated the colour. I hated everything about those years without you. There was only loneliness in Madrid and the flavour of grief. If anything is allowed to threaten us...here...’ She could not go on.
‘You have been worrying?’ He stroked the lines on her forehead with one finger. ‘And nothing can ever part us again, I promise you.’
‘That is what I loved about you right from the beginning, Lucien. Your certainty. I felt safe and safety is an underrated commodity, I think. You realise this only when you have lived through chaos. So tell your sister, then, that she needs to fashion a dress for the Hughes ball that will make me look magnificent, like Boadicea going into battle.’
‘You are sure?’
‘With you beside me, Lucien, I can do anything.’
She liked it when he gathered the length of her hair in one hand and came across her. No small loving this, no fragile tryst. Throwing away problems, she savoured the warmth and the strength of him and forgot the world around them altogether.
* * *
Two weeks later Alejandra sat in the carriage and took in a deep breath as the conveyance slowed in front of the Hughes town house. They were late.
‘Everyone will be there waiting for us. Don’t worry.’ Lucien drew back the curtain and looked out into the night.
They were to have met at the house of Daniel Wylde, but the wheel axel had been loose on the carriage on the way up from Linden Park, so they had had to wait at a tavern in Southborough until it could be fixed and made safe. By the time they had got to the Ross town house to get ready for the ball everything was a rush.
Closing her eyes against the traffic and the lights, Alejandra fingered her rosary and prayed that the evening would be a success.
‘It will be fine, sweetheart.’ Lucien was in black tonight, the colour of his clothing unbroken save for the snowy-white neckcloth that he had folded carefully and the paleness of his hair. ‘Give them five minutes and they will love you like I do.’
But she could not be consoled by his words, she who had ridden into battle and roamed the high and dangerous passes of the Spanish mountains, she who had understood the intricacies of knife fighting and swordsmanship since she was a young girl. Alejandra Fernandez y Santo Domingo, daughter of El Vengador. No, in England the enemy was different,
less seen somehow and thus more brutal. Here she could rely on neither her prowess nor her reputation. Here they could deny her and Lucien a place in society and a home in London and gossip was a vice that went on and on. For ever, if those who hated them should so wish it.
‘And if they don’t? If we fail...?’
‘I never fail,’ he returned, and the look in his light-blue eyes was exactly the one she had seen in the olive grove above the hacienda as he had walked himself almost to death to try to get fitter.
Reaching for his hand, she was glad to feel the warmth of his fingers against her freezing ones.
‘Look at it like a contest, Alejandra. Two steps forward and one step back. We will never win them all over, but we just need enough.’
* * *
The chatter rose on the air as they walked to the top of the stairs, hundreds of people below in their very best attire and candles in holders along every wall and horizontal space.
‘The Earl and Countess of Ross.’
The major-domo announced them, his formal tones booming across conversation, and the lull was almost instant. Every face turned their way, every eye, the silence deafening as they walked down the wide long staircase into the room proper.
If Lucien had not been beside her, she would have fallen, she was sure of it; as it was she tripped slightly and he held her still.
‘Put your chin up and smile. We are married.’
And she did, simply looked the spectators directly in the eyes and smiled as if all she expected were compliments and wishes of good luck and good fortune.
Her heart still pounded in her chest and her stomach trembled with nerves, but she did not show it.
What was it her father had said once? Attitude is all in the confidence, Alejandra. People will believe of you what you will them to. Her mama, too, as she had brushed out her hair at night gently and lovingly. It’s not what you look like, my love. It’s what’s inside that counts.
Well, inside was steel and tenacity and the will to survive. She had survived all that life had thrown at her so far and she would not allow this wonderment with Lucien to be snatched away on the flighty tail of gossip.