“It’s really the fortune hunters we’ll need to guard against,” he said.
“But why? They haven’t any dowries.”
“Poppy.” He stroked his thumb over the curve of her chin. “Of course they’ll have dowries. They’re your sisters. We will dower them.”
For just a moment a glaze of tears shimmered in her eyes. He’d thought the pearls a fine gift, himself—but, no, she hadn’t given a fig for jewelry. All it had taken to bring that soft, admiring look to her eyes was security for her sisters.
∞∞∞
At first Poppy had stood alongside her husband because he was the devil she knew, and she’d seen neither hide nor hair of Jilly since she’d left them, nor of Lady Ravenhurst. But Westwood had been surprisingly pleasant to her, and though she knew it to be a ploy to stem the gossip surrounding them, he was a comforting presence at her side.
He would give the girls dowries. It was something she could not have provided for them, when all her funds were tied up in supporting them, in dressing them and educating them and ensuring they had every other opportunity which she could seize in her fist. She found herself curiously touched by it, as it was certainly far beyond what she would have expected of him.
The ball had turned out differently than she had expected. It was odd, somehow, to view a ballroom from this angle—not seated in her chaperone’s chair, peering through the crowd to keep her eyes on the girls, but standing amongst the crowd as if she belonged there. Westwood, to his credit, was attempting to keep her entertained with scandalous bits of gossip, and he kept smiling down at her in a way that made her stomach pitch and roll.
She sipped the champagne he’d offered her, plucked straight from the tray of a passing servant, and tried to concentrate on Victoria and Isobel whirling around the ballroom floor rather than the warm hand pressed against the small of her back.
“Don’t indulge in too much champagne,” her husband murmured into her ear. “I still mean to have that dance.”
A moment later a gentleman passed before them, then paused, blocking her view of the ballroom floor. “I say—Miss Fairchild, isn’t it?”
The first indication that Poppy had that something was amiss was Westwood’s hand tensing upon her back. Her stomach gave a queer jolt. Though she couldn’t quite recall the gentleman’s name—they had not, after all, been introduced—she did recognize him from that awful scene at Jilly’s dinner party. He’d peered at the both of them through the door of the library, his face glowing with malicious delight. He would have been a handsome man, had his face not been given over to the sulky, petulant expression of a man who, despite his noble position, was in constant dissatisfaction with nearly every facet of his life. She wondered what had happened to him, what could have caused such discontentment in a man who had everything—he would have fit perfectly the mold of one of her heroes; tortured, brooding, and profoundly unhappy.
When he responded, Westwood’s voice was light enough, but with an unmistakable twang of steel. “Lady Westwood,” he corrected. “Come now, Leighton. Surely your mind’s not going soft on you so soon.”
Leighton. That was the—the marquess who had won the affections of Lady Elaine, whom Westwood had himself vied for. For a moment a flicker of antipathy passed across Leighton’s face. It sent a shiver down Poppy’s spine and compelled Westwood’s hand to flatten there in a soothing gesture.
But the loathing fled in only a moment, and Leighton’s face was restored to tranquility once more. “Of course,” he said. “How could anyone forget? It was quite a scandal—”
“Careful, Leighton. I’m a better shot than you are.” Westwood murmured the words, and Poppy tensed once more at the subtle threat. Had Westwood really intimated the possibility of a duel here? In a crowded ballroom?
“Ah, but even that won’t win you Elaine, now, will it? You’ve already got a wife.” Leighton’s spiteful smile wrenched the breath from Poppy’s lungs, sent a chill skittering over her skin. The sympathy she had been tempted to fled, and the dreadful man seemed to sense her discomfort, for he turned his cold gaze on her. “I wonder, Lady Westwood, if you might honor me with a dance.”
Poppy barely saved herself from flinching, the pressure of Westwood’s hand at her back a reassuring force. There was no light behind Leighton’s eyes, no life, as if something in him had died. This man wasn’t merely unhappy, he was broken—a shell of the man he ought to have been, devoid of anything but pain. Like a wounded animal, he lashed out to drive away anyone who dared venture too close. But she had become accustomed to seeing what others did not. Though she wouldn’t care to have him take a swipe at her, she found herself pitying him.
Westwood gave a low laugh. “I’m afraid all of my wife’s dances are reserved for me this evening, Leighton. You know how it is—newlyweds and all that.” He canted his head. “Ahh, and there’s a waltz beginning. Be a good man and take these for us, won’t you?” And then he was pressing their champagne glasses into Leighton’s hands and steering Poppy toward the dance floor.
Anxiety fluttered in her chest, pulling her muscles tight and stiff. Caught between honoring her ill-considered promise and the desire to flee before she could make a fool of herself again before all of these people in front of whom she had already been so humbled once prior, she found herself whispering, “But I can’t—”
He must’ve heard the encroaching panic in her voice, for he murmured, “Don’t fret.” He drew her into the rhythm of the waltz and to her surprise, she didn’t stumble. “You’ll do fine; only keep your eyes on me.”
It was a difficult request; he cut such a dashing figure that she feared that were she to truly focus her attention on him, she might never be able to drag it away. He was ridiculously, improbably handsome, with the sort of cool, well-hewn features that put one in mind of ancient Greek gods or…or statues lovingly rendered from smooth marble, not flesh-and-blood men. Men weren’t made like that. They just weren’t.
He made her feel like a dowdy little mouse in comparison. No; that was unfair—she couldn’t assign the blame to him. It wasn’t his fault that she would never be a great beauty. There was no sense in painting her in any more flattering tones than that. She would never be as glowing and gloriously golden as the beauteous Lady Elaine.
“You’re thinking something unpleasant,” he said, his voice pitched low.
She felt herself jerk in surprise at his candor, at his remarkable intuition.
“How—”
“I can see it in your eyes. I can always see it. Whatever it is you’re thinking.” That cool stare was alarmingly penetrating, and Poppy worried madly for just a second that he could somehow see straight into her head, pulling out each stray thought to examine and wonder at.
Of course he couldn’t. What a foolish, fanciful notion. Something about him just tempted her imagination so, and she’d let it run away with her again.
He smothered a laugh, the corners of his mouth drawing up in wry amusement. “I didn’t mean that,” he said, and she knew he’d meant exactly what she’d thought, that he’d somehow divined that, too, from her eyes. “I meant that your face is so expressive, it’s easy to see what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling.” He was studying her, watching her face with an intensity that was distressing, reading her face as if it were a book opened before his eyes. “What was it, that thought that so disturbed you?”
Lifting her shoulder in a graceless shrug, she sighed, and because there was no point in being less than honest with him, with herself, she admitted, “Lady Elaine is…very beautiful. You would have looked well together. I’m sorry she chose elsewhere. I’m sure, in time, she will be, too.”
Westwood blinked. And blinked again, as if she’d stunned him. And then, before the music had even wound down, he was leading her off the ballroom floor and back into the crowd—through the crowd. She didn’t know what he intended, but he had caught her hand firmly in his and pulled her along with him, past the chaperone’s seats, past the refreshment t
able, past a good number of people.
She caught sight of Jilly once again, and so had he—he gave a brief nod to his sister, and then a jerk of his head toward the dance floor, to which Jilly gave a firm nod in response. Poppy thought he might have wordlessly indicated that he’d like Jilly to monitor the twins for a bit.
Because Poppy would not be able to do so. Because he intended to remove her from the ballroom for some reason. And there was little she could do for it without causing a scene—and she’d already borne the brunt of enough scandal to last a lifetime. And so she allowed her husband to drag her along in his wake through the teeming crowd, out of the ballroom, through the terrace doors, and into the soft and sweet night air.
Chapter Twenty-Five
David could feel Poppy’s anxiety in the tension of her fingers. He suspected that if he drew off her glove, they’d be cold in his, stiff with worry and strain. Poppy was not a woman who handled uncertainty particularly well, and for that he could not blame her—her life had been one bad turn after another, and a woman alone, especially a woman with two younger sisters to care for, had few options with which to control her own fate.
She did not control it now. Her fate had been surrendered into his keeping the moment she’d whispered ‘I will’ before a man of God and signed her name to the marriage license. In the eyes of the law she belonged to him—his property, in much the same way that his carriage belonged to him, his house belonged to him, his furniture and clothing belonged to him. But she had not surrendered. Impossible, for a woman like her, to give of herself to a man she hardly knew and did not trust. He’d given her precious few reasons to trust him, and a good number of them not to.
She had said she was sorry that Elaine had rejected him, and she had intended the words honestly. But she had meant that she was sorry that he hadn’t gotten the wife he’d wanted. That he’d ended up saddled with her.
A dried up, prune-faced spinster. Even now the words sailed through his mind, sticking in his conscience like a serrated knife. He doubted he’d ever exorcise the sight of her stricken face when he’d said those terrible words from his mind.
Her fingers wiggled in his, a futile request for release. He clutched them tighter, dragged her past the ballroom windows, around the side of the house where they could remain unseen. Her dancing slippers skidded on the slick stones lining the walkway, and he slowed his steps to accommodate her. At last he pulled her to a stop, turned her back against the wall, confident that he’d ferreted out a position where no one could sneak up on them, where they would hear an intruder coming.
“My lord—”
He clamped his gloved hand over her mouth, stifling the words. “You’re my wife, Poppy. My wife. You call me David.” Beneath his hand she made a little sound of aggravation, her breath huffing out through her nose.
Cautiously he lifted his hand.
“Sir—”
Clamp. She glared at him, her eyes suggesting she would dearly love to enact a repeat performance of her behavior the night they’d met—when he’d dragged her into the library with him—and bite him. Not that she could do very much damage through his glove. Still, this was a situation he had never imagined. He felt a curious effervescent sensation rising in his chest, and a strange choked sound emerged from his throat. And then another—and another, and suddenly he was laughing in earnest, and struggling to tamp down the immoderate sound before it caught them more attention than he was prepared to contend with.
“Poppy,” he sighed, when he could reliably manage words once again. “I do not wish I were married to Elaine. It’s not the sort of thing one says in the middle of a ballroom floor, amidst prying ears, but it’s true.”
She made a muffled sound beneath his palm, and her hands came up to tug at his fingers. But she couldn’t get a firm grip through her thin evening gloves.
“Do you know, I think I like you best when you can’t speak. Because you tend to say the damnedest, most maddening things, and I’m not half so clever as you. You distract me with your taunts and your accusations until I’m so tangled up I’ve forgotten what it was I meant to say, and I never seem to win a damned thing with you.” He gave a great, shuddering laugh and pressed his forehead to hers, watched her eyes dilate in the darkness, her pupils swallowing her irises until those sparkling golden flecks disappeared. “This time—for once—I’m going to win.”
In one smooth motion he dragged his palm away from her mouth and smothered her swift inhalation with his lips. He tasted the faint tartness of champagne, of shock—she gave a shiver, but it could have just been the coolness of the night and the thin silk of her gown.
With a shuddering gasp she tore her lips from his. “My lord—”
His fingers beneath her chin, he angled her right back into the kiss, and for a long, breathless moment she fell beneath the spell of it, just as he had. The tartness on her tongue faded into something infinitely sweeter, something indefinably Poppy. She swayed just a bit, and then her hands were on his shoulders, her fingertips needling him. He needed her gloves off, but knew he couldn’t risk it here, where they could be spotted.
Again she surfaced. “My—”
“Damn it, Poppy,” he muttered against her lips, clasping her face in his hands, holding her still. He was going to win this battle between them if it took the remainder of the evening, if he had to kiss her into compliance for the next several hours.
Upon further consideration, that sounded like a smashing good time.
He could feel the pounding of her pulse beneath his fingers and knew it was the echo of his own. Each kiss brought her further and further into his web, until her chest was heaving with her frantic breaths, until she pressed closer of her own accord, until her tongue sparred with his. She might never have been kissed before he’d kissed her, but she was an apt pupil.
“David,” she said at last, and her mouth tasted like victory, like pride and hope and passion all swirled into one intoxicating blend. His hands slid away from her face, around her waist to draw her into the curve of his body, to let her feel the effect a few frenzied kisses had wrought upon him.
He hushed her when she made a tiny sound of surprise, bussing his lips against her temple. “You’re my wife,” he reminded her. “It’s allowed. Sanctioned, even.” Though perhaps not so dangerously close to publicly, on the grounds of a house that did not belong to them.
“This is foolish,” she said, and her voice was thick, and he knew the weight of what she had allowed him, what she had given him, had crushed down upon her. Still, she did not push him away. He wondered why.
“I would never have brought Elaine out here for this sort of thing,” he said.
“Of course not,” she replied, her voice tinged with bitterness. “She’s a lady.”
“You’re a lady,” he countered, and let a moment or so pass in silence before he at last divulged, “I admit that until fairly recently I fancied myself in love with Elaine. But I wasn’t—I wasn’t, and I didn’t even know it until—” No. She didn’t need to know he’d had to be led into the realization by Rushton. “It doesn’t matter. But you should know that even when I thought myself in love with her, I never wanted her half so much as I want you.” It was the simple, honest, unvarnished truth. She deserved to know it. He’d savaged her self-esteem so terribly already—he owed her at least this much.
She gave an uncomfortable little wiggle in his arms, sliding away as far as the wall at her back would allow, an awkward laugh climbing in her throat. “You needn’t say such things to me. I assure you, I have no illusions regarding the circumstances of our marriage.” She drew a sharp breath, as if bracing herself for further unpleasantness. “I’ve no intention of disrupting your life any further. I won’t begrudge you your mistresses.”
“I don’t have a mistress.” She was doing it again, snarling the threads of the conversation, her clever little mind running in a dozen different directions. “I don’t want a mistress. I want you.” He braced one hand on the wall besi
de her head, seized her hand with the other, and carried it to the front of his breeches, pressing her palm over himself, over the evidence of his arousal.
Her shocked little face stared up at him, her eyes wide with astonishment. As if falling into a dream, her face softened, the rigidity slipping inexorably from her shoulders. Shyly, her fingers shaped him through his breeches. The delicate pressure of her hand made him shudder, and he groaned against her lips, undone.
“God. Poppy. Yes, like that.” Cupping her hand in his, he taught her the rhythm, the firm, smooth strokes. “You’re so—God.” He pressed a fierce kiss against her temple. He hadn’t been so close to spending in his clothes since he had been little more than a boy, but her soft little hand had brought him to the brink of it in just half a dozen strokes. “You’ve got to stop,” he rasped against her cheek. “I’ll spend.”
Her hand hesitated for a fraction of a second, then continued its delicious torment. He lifted his head, stared down into her face. That sweet blend of curiosity and determination, he’d seen it before—she wanted to know, to study him with her artist’s eyes, to tuck away this experience in her brain.
There was something remarkably intimate about it, and yet he could not recall ever having been more aroused. His cock throbbed with desire for her, with the desperate need for release, aching for her to bring him off here and now.
“Are you going to watch me?” he asked, his voice a guttural growl. “Are you going to watch me come for you?” He nipped her earlobe, startling a gasp from her. “Tell me.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes.”
“I’ll let you do it again. Without clothes, next time. Poppy, I’ll let you watch me whenever you like, however you like.” He nuzzled her ear, felt her tremble against him. “So long as you let me watch you.”
There had never been a woman like her in his life, never a woman who tempted him as she did, with her insatiable curiosity, her impertinence, her strength of character and resolve. He would have liked to spend an eternity there, with her small had rubbing him toward climax, whispering lurid, suggestive things in her ear and feeling the tremors skitter through her in reaction..
His Reluctant Lady Page 20