Some time—some unmeasured time—later Tess woke. She stirred and Owen shifted, drawing her closer into his arms. She realised that he had been awake, watching her. His fingers stirred in her hair, caressing.
“I trust you have worked up an appetite now,” he murmured.
Tess smiled. “I do seem to be hungry,” she murmured. “How helpful you have been.”
“My pleasure.” Owen’s lips tickled the lobe of her ear. His teeth closed about it. He sucked on it. Tess felt the goose pimples cascade over her skin as she shivered with voluptuous sensation.
“We’ll send for some food,” Owen whispered. His hand was resting low on her stomach, warm and intimate. Tess could feel little ripples of sublime pleasure tightening her belly.
“In a little while,” Owen finished. “But first I understand your need to make up for lost time.”
This time he made love to her with such slow extravagance that the food, and indeed everything else, was completely forgotten.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“MARRIAGE SUITS YOU THIS TIME around.” Joanna poured tea into Tess’s dainty china cup and offered her an equally dainty cake of sponge and cream. They were in Joanna’s drawing room, which glowed warm on this dull November day, bright with hothouse flowers and jewel-coloured porcelain. Joanna, Tess thought with more than a hint of envy, certainly had exquisite taste. Perhaps she might be the best person to transform the old Rothbury mausoleum in Clarges Street after all.
“You look radiant,” Joanna continued. A mischievous smile played about her lips. “Am I to assume that you have discovered certain benefits to being married that you had not been aware of before?”
“It has only been ten days but I like marriage very well,” Tess admitted, biting into her cake and feeling the cream and jam splurge. She licked her fingers. “Yes, I would say that being wed does indeed have something to recommend it.”
“I am glad,” Joanna said. She eyed her sister shrewdly. “That, I suppose, is the difference between a marriage of convenience and a love match.”
Tess almost choked on her tea. “I’m not in love with Owen!” she said automatically. The idea seemed absurd, yet as soon as the words were out she felt strange, disloyal, as though she had committed a betrayal.
Love. Now that the word was out it was like the genie from the bottle; she could not force it back in again. She went hot all over with panic. Her cup rattled in the saucer as she put it down. She could not be in love. It was impossible. She had never been in love in her entire life. She did not know how to do it.
“Yes, you are,” Joanna said calmly. “You are in love with him.”
“No, I’m not,” Tess contradicted. The exchange showed signs of degenerating into a schoolroom squabble of the type that had been all too familiar since their childhood.
“You are always running away from things,” Joanna complained.
“And you always have to be right.”
They glared at each other. “Well, you should be in love with him!” Joanna was looking as angry as Joanna could look, which was to say she looked pretty and disordered and really quite cross. “Why are you not? Because you think it is not fashionable?”
A cold void had opened beneath Tess’s heart with each denial. She felt very, very afraid. She knew Joanna was right. Now that the truth was staring her in the face she did not know how she had missed it for so long. Somehow, when she had not been paying attention, she had lost her heart to Owen. She was no longer in control of her own emotions. She had thought that all she had surrendered was her body and she had liked that. She had enjoyed the discovery of physical pleasure. But all the time Owen’s seduction had not been merely to do with physical love. It had involved trust and reassurance, protection and comfort as well as desire. She had fallen hard. Owen had seduced her into loving him with all her heart and all her soul, and now she was terribly vulnerable. She had no defences at all and she was undone.
She picked up her cup again and took a delicate sip of the cold tea. “I’ve barely come to terms with the concept of lust,” she said lightly. She could hear the note of panic in her voice. “I confess I like it extremely. I’m in love with lust.”
“You’re in love with Owen,” Joanna corrected bluntly. “Admit it, Tess.”
“Nonsense,” Tess said. The sliding panicked feeling inside her intensified. “I like him. I like him very much. I feel about him much the same way that I felt for Mr. Chasuble, the dancing master, when I finally learned the steps of the quadrille. A sort of tendre, I suppose.”
Joanna made a very rude noise. “The two cases are very different and you know it. You light up like the Vauxhall Garden fireworks whenever Owen is near you.”
Tess stared blindly into the dregs of her teacup. “Are you sure?” she said. “I mean, how would you know?” She had never known love. She had closed her life and her mind to it. She had never realised how terrifying—how exhilarating—love might be, how it meant giving everything that she had to give. But now she could not deny it. She felt torn between fear and excitement, lost and found at the same time.
“Believe me,” Joanna said. “I know.”
Tess felt a tiny shred of hope and warmth. It was a shock to discover that her emotions were engaged but that was only because she was so naive in the ways of love. She had trusted Owen with her body. She could surely trust him now with her heart. But only if he loved her in return, or the balance between them would be too unequal. She frowned. She did not know how Owen felt about her. He had been endlessly tender but that did not mean that he loved her. She was painfully unsure.
“I am glad for Owen,” Joanna said. “He deserves someone of his own—” She stopped abruptly.
There was a very curious, very long silence, as though time hung suspended on the thinnest of threads. Tess felt a little dizzy. Joanna was evading her gaze now, fidgeting with the teapot, filling up her cup although it was already almost brimming over. The pale November sunlight shone on the arrangement of hothouse roses in the bowl on the table. They were scentless. Tess could hear the clink of Joanna’s cup and the sound of carriage wheels from the street outside, and somewhere in the depths of the house a door closed.
This was the moment when she knew she could simply draw back and make some remark about the weather or the winter fashions or Lady Meriton’s ball that night. She could ignore Joanna’s remark and pretend that it had not occurred. They would never refer to it again. And yet she could not do it because it was already too late.
“Owen deserves someone of his own,” she said softly, “as opposed to loving someone who is in love with someone else?”
A wave of guilty colour washed up from Joanna’s neck, staining her cheeks bright pink. Even in guilt, Tess thought sourly, her sister looked very pretty indeed. She wondered how she could have been so slow to understand. She had been aware that Joanna and Owen had known one another for years, since the days of Joanna’s first marriage, long before Joanna had married Alex. Owen had taken them to Spitsbergen aboard Sea Witch. Tess thought of the cramped accommodation on the ship and the enforced proximity and the adventures they must have shared…?.
Joanna and Owen. Owen and Joanna…
A wave of violent jealousy crashed over her. She was utterly unprepared for it and it left her feeling physically sick.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” she said slowly. “Owen was in love with you.” She remembered the day in the park when she had asked Owen if he had ever wanted to wed and he had hesitated for one betraying moment before replying. She knew now; the answer had been, yes, he had been in love. Yes, he had wanted to marry.
He had wanted to marry her sister.
She waited for Joanna to contradict her. She waited with a slowly sinking heart where hope dwindled from a tiny spark to nothing at all. She wanted Joanna to deny it more than anything in the world because the lovely warm confidence she had started to feel in her relationship with Owen was so precious but so fragile. Against the odds she had come to trust h
im. For a few moments her mind had even started to accept that it might be safe to love him. Her feelings for Owen had been just for her, something new and unspoiled. She had only just started to find her way. Now, as she felt the happiness ooze from her, Tess wondered if it had all been based on shifting sand.
“It wasn’t really like that,” Joanna said after a moment.
“Tell me how it was, then,” Tess said. Her words came out flatly when in her head they sounded like a scream.
“Owen helped me when David treated me very badly,” Joanna said in a rush. “You know that my first marriage was not happy.” She paused and then as Tess nodded she hurried on. “David assaulted me and Owen paid someone to protect me, that is all. It was one of the boxers from Tom Cribb’s tavern. You may remember that I was a Lady of the Fancy before I married Alex, and went to all the boxing matches.” Joanna was chattering now, the words spilling over Tess’s head and rushing past her unnoticed like a river in full flood. Owen had helped Joanna when she had been in trouble. Well, that was not so bad. Any decent man would surely have done the same. Except… Tess felt doubt nibble at the corners of her mind. Owen had protected her when she had been in trouble. Perhaps he had some sort of compulsion to rescue women in distress.
“But by then, of course, I was married to Alex,” Joanna was saying, and Tess realised that her sister was still talking, quickly, almost feverishly, avoiding her gaze, shredding the heads of the roses until they looked as though they had had a very bad haircut. “Owen knew I was not happy,” Joanna said, “and it is true that he did ask me to elope with him, but I refused and I am sure that he thought no more of it.”
Tess found her voice. “Wait,” she said. Another roll of sickness beat through her. “Owen asked you to elope with him after you had married Alex?”
Again she waited for the denial, because she knew that Owen and Alex had been friends and comrades for years and years, and surely no man would put a woman before that unless he truly loved her and believed her worth smashing to smithereens years of trust. Unless he loved her body, heart and soul, the way she now realised she wanted Owen to love her.?…
The deep blush in Joanna’s cheeks deepened further. Her expression was furtive but Tess thought there was also a hint of triumph there. She was sure of it. From the nursery Joanna had always wanted everything first, the prettiest clothes, the new dolls—not the books; Merryn was allowed those, since they bored Joanna—the attention, first from their parents and brother, later from men…?. Joanna had always been first. Tess simply had not expected her to extend this to being first with her husband, any of her husbands. But particularly not this husband since he was the only one she loved with all her heart and soul.
“I see,” she said. Her voice shook, echoing the tremor inside her. She stood up. Even her legs felt a little shaky. “And you were never going to tell me this?”
“I didn’t tell you because it was all over a long time ago,” Joanna argued. She had got to her feet as well. She put a hand out, took Tess’s hand in hers. Hers was warm, as warm as the gentleness in her blue eyes. Tess wished she could believe Joanna was sincere, but she was racked by cold doubt and fear now. It was horrible to imagine that Owen had married her only because he could not have Joanna. It was equally impossible not to think it. And even if he had not, he must have loved Joanna so much, so very much—and here the jealously scored her again with its deep claws—to have wanted her to run away with him.
“It meant nothing,” Joanna repeated.
Tess snatched her hand away. “It does not mean nothing for a man to ask you to elope with him,” she said. She felt a spurt of anger. “Don’t belittle both of you by pretending!”
“Well, no.” Joanna was frowning, confused. Tess could see that she was groping for words, words to put matters right or at the least not to make the situation worse. Unfortunately there were no words that could do that.
“As I said, it was a long time ago and I daresay Owen has forgotten,” Joanna said.
“You have not forgotten!” Tess burst out. She smoothed her skirts in jerky little gestures, creasing and recreasing the lavender silk. Her throat burned with hot tears. She hated herself for her jealousy. She hated that she felt it, that she could not control it. It was like a canker eating away at her.
“Lady Martindale wanted you to decorate the house,” she said. It was another vicious little pinprick, the thought of her sister renovating the Clarges Street house that might under different circumstances have been her own. She gave a shudder. “I feel as though you’re present in every aspect of my marriage.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Joanna said, sharply now.
“How would you feel if you thought Alex was in love with someone else and that he only married you as second best?” Tess burst out.
A rueful expression touched Joanna’s eyes. “Perhaps I understand that better than you think,” she said. “When I married Alex I was haunted by the ghost of his first wife.” She spread her hands. “But my jealousy was needless and that is how it is for you and Owen, Tess. Ask him. He’ll tell you the truth.”
Tess rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. That was what she was afraid of. Owen would tell her the truth because he always did. And she was not entirely sure she wanted to hear it.
She started to walk towards the door. It seemed a very long way.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Joanna said suddenly, from behind her. “Tess, all I want is for you to be happy.”
Tess stopped. Her chest felt constricted, as though it was bound very tight.
“Tess…” Joanna said again, and Tess could hear the tears in her sister’s voice now.
Her shoulders slumped. She turned. “I know,” she said, through the huge lump in her throat. She wanted to be angry with Joanna, wanted to blame her, but it was not possible. She remembered her sister giving her a home after she had been widowed for a third time, remembered Joanna’s dogged attempts to reach out to her even though she rebuffed her time and again. It was impossible to hate the sister who loved her and it was unworthy to want to.
“You didn’t sleep with him, did you?” she asked. “I don’t think I could bear that.”
“No!” Joanna looked horrified. “I never even kissed him! I promise you.”
Tess nodded. They looked at one another and then they grabbed each other and hugged very tightly.
“I’m sorry,” Joanna said, muffled. “Tess, I’m so sorry…?.”
They hugged again.
“Go to him,” Joanna said, loosing Tess, giving her a little shake. “Ask him.” She looked dubious. “Or don’t, if you prefer not.”
“I only wish he had told me of his own accord,” Tess said.
She felt miserable as she walked back to Clarges Street through the melting snow. The November wind was bitter even though the sun was out. Tess felt the raw chill on her feverishly hot cheeks. Her eyes felt gritty and sore with suppressed tears and the cold made them sting. Her nose was red. There was little to recommend marriage, she thought, when it totally ruined one’s appearance.
Her gloom deepened when she stepped inside the house. It was so dark and murky, overlooked by those ghastly marble busts and stone statues. In a flash of despair she imagined how Joanna would have stamped her mark on the house and made it bright and welcoming and somehow her own.
“Is it true that you wanted to elope with Joanna?” She burst in, flinging open the door of the library. She had not intended to accost Owen like this, but now the jealousy was driving her hard again and she could not hold her tongue. There was a pain about her heart. She had never realised that love could hurt so profoundly.
Garrick Farne was with Owen. Tess registered his presence then ignored him. She planted herself in front of Owen’s desk.
“Well?” she demanded.
Garrick got to his feet. “I don’t think you need me anymore, do you, Rothbury?”
“No,” Owen said. He eyed Tess thoughtfully. “I am sure I can make a hash of
this on my own, thank you, Farne.”
Garrick grinned. He bowed to Tess and went out.
Tess slapped her gloves down on the table. “Is it true that you—”
“I heard you the first time,” Owen said curtly, cutting her off.
Tess stared at him. He had always been so patient with her, so courteous, that she was utterly unprepared for a different reaction. There was a hard, angry light in his eyes. With a shock to the heart Tess realised that this mattered to him. It mattered a great deal. She felt sick despair twist in her stomach.
“Yes,” Owen said. “Yes, it’s true. I asked Joanna to run away with me. I was in love with her.”
She had not even asked that and he was offering the information. Anger at the obtuseness of men in general and her husband in particular lit Tess with a vivid fury.
“So you married me because you could not have her?” she asked sharply.
The darkness in Owen’s eyes deepened. The hot, angry atmosphere of the library simmered up several notches.
“That is unworthy of both of you,” he said, biting off the words.
All Tess wanted to hear were the words Joanna had spoken—that it had been over a long time ago, that it had meant nothing to him, that she was the one who mattered now. But being a man, he was not going to say the right thing.
“Every time,” she said slowly, “when we have been together, I thought you were thinking of me. I can’t bear to think that you were thinking of her whilst making love to me.”
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