“I’m sure he won’t be able to sit for weeks,” Rake drawled, oozing with manly satisfaction, and his wife clapped her hands joyfully.
“That’s wonderful news! You are the best.”
“I try.” Rake’s grin was more wicked than ever when he glanced hotly at his wife.
“This is the best day I’ve had in a long time.” Penelope’s sigh reeked with satisfaction. “Not only will that horrible man have troubles with his behind for a while, but we also managed to sneak into Harveyfield and gather our things without Father noticing.”
“You did what?”
Catching the tea in his throat as he sat up too fast, Sin started to cough.
“There, there,” Rake murmured, helpfully whacking his nephew on the back.
“St-hop ta-hat!”
“Excuse me?”
Sin glared at Rake, who looked as innocent as a newborn baby. Not an easy task when one was the libertine of all time. “Stop the whacking.”
“Oh. Sorry. Just wanted to be helpful.”
“You were not.”
Rake shrugged indifferently and grabbed a sandwich, ignoring his sulking relative. Sin shot another sour look at him before turning to the two sisters and scowling darkly at them.
“You two were at Harveyfield?”
“Yes.” Penelope looked a bit uncomfortable.
“What were you doing there?”
“Gathering our things.”
“Your things?”
“Our memorabilia. A few childhood things, which mean something to us and nothing to him.”
“Are you two out of your minds?”
Penelope sat up straighter. “It was the perfect, most sensible thing to do. They are our things, little memories from our childhood, and they wouldn’t have any value to him. Only to us.”
Sin looked at Charmaine, but she kept her eyes on her sister, sending her compassionate glances, and he felt a cold hand grab his heart. What if Lord Nester had returned? The man was insane, something he had proven more than once, and just the thought of his wife getting caught in that man’s hands made him shiver.
“Did you see your father?”
“No. He wasn’t at home,” Penelope answered lightly. “And that’s why we emptied Mother’s room of her small things, too.”
“You did what?”
The room became as quiet as a tomb as the rest of the family halted their conversations and looked at them, wondering why Sin had yelled at the top of his lungs. He knew it wasn’t common for him to show this much feeling in front of others, but to hear that they had been in that house…had been in that man’s house…
“We had to save Mother’s things.”
Penelope’s voice was stiff, and seeing the tears lurking in her eyes made him feel like a cad. They had just lost their mother. Of course they weren’t thinking straight.
He looked at his wife, wondering if she were just as upset, but she seemed just as composed as ever. No tears hung in her eyelashes. Not one emotion was seen on her beautiful face as she looked back at him with her vivid blue eyes.
“They had to,” Rake interrupted Sin’s thoughts. “Considering how the man had tried to hide Lady Nester’s grave, it’s not too hard to guess what he would have done with her things.”
“Burnt them, probably,” Penelope offered in a heartbroken whisper. Immediately Rake went to his wife, scooting her into his arms before sitting down again with her on his lap. Charmaine calmly collected her skirt, saving it from becoming wrinkled, and Sin couldn’t help wondering how she would have reacted if he had done the same thing to her.
Would she have liked him putting her on his lap so she could hide her face against his chest while he embraced her tenderly? His heart said yes, but his eyes told him no. She didn’t seem touched at all by all the emotions being shown beside her in the sofa. Instead she continued to sew on her embroidery with perfect little stitches.
Always the lady.
For a second he thought about that first time he had left her alone in her bed, when she had looked hurt and lonely as he harshly abandoned her. That was the last time he had seen any sign of feeling on her lovely face, other than when they made love.
Even at the news of her mother’s death she had stayed calm and unemotional, while Penelope had cried all over the room and particularly all over Rake.
“I still think it was a stupid thing to do,” he continued, forcing his voice to be steady and low. “What if Lord Nester had returned? What would the two of you have done then? Penny, he could have grabbed you again and sent you one last time to Lord Bolton. Or didn’t you consider that?”
Penelope paled visibly as she took in his words, and he held back a satisfied smile. This wasn’t the time or the place to gloat. Instead he just harrumphed and pretended not to notice how well his lecture had taken.
“Aren’t you being a bit too obnoxious now?” Sebastian asked as he joined their little circle. “Nothing happened, after all, and it’s not as if they are going back there again.”
Sin wanted to growl out his frustration over the interruption just as he had the situation under control, but as always he forced his feelings back and shrugged as indifferently as he could manage toward his brother. “If caring about the safety of your wife and your sister-in-law means being obnoxious, then I have to confess I am.”
Sebastian grinned impishly as he sat down in an empty chair. “I’m just saying you could ease your stance a bit. Nothing happened. End of story.”
“Indeed,” the duchess agreed, as she too joined them. “Let’s just leave what could have happened and instead direct our attention to what did happen. You found Lady Nester’s grave?”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Charmaine nodded. “They had buried her in the furthest part of the graveyard.”
“Horrible.” The duchess shook her head sadly. “Truly horrible. Thank God the four of you found the site before that evil Lord Nester managed to hide it beneath a bush or something.”
“Oh, Sin wasn’t with us,” Rake said with a faint smile. “He had more important things to do.”
The duchess turned to stare angrily at Sin. “More important than accompanying your wife to her newly deceased mother’s grave? Sinclair Darling!”
“I’ve been away for a month,” Sin answered, filled with the righteousness only a wrongly accused man can feel. “A month! Do you know how much work there was piled up, waiting for me? Stacks upon stacks upon stacks of paperwork? Don’t berate me for taking care of neglected business instead of going with Charmaine to the graveyard. She had her sister with her, for goodness’ sake.”
“A sister is not a husband.”
She had him there, he had to admit. Anna Darling, Duchess of Berkeley, was infamous for her illogical logic, and when she was upset about something—which was most of the time—there was no possibility of persuading her to change her mind.
“You have a point there,” Sin agreed. “A sister isn’t and can never be a husband.”
“Are you patronizing me, boy?”
Sin wanted to roll his eyes heavenward, but managed to stop himself in time. Instead, he shook his head and mumbled something the duchess correctly interpreted as an excuse.
“You should have chosen your wife, in that situation,” she lectured him, wagging her index finger at him. “The books haven’t got any feelings, but a wife does. Your wife just lost her mother.”
“It’s all right,” Charmaine interrupted gently. “I managed quite well without him.”
She obviously didn’t mean to be rude, she was probably just trying to stand by his side against his grandmother, but he couldn’t help feeling a bit vexed over how easily she erased the importance of his presence. So she had managed quite well without him?
Somehow her words made him feel more unimportant than ever, and he clamped his mouth shut so he wouldn’t say something to be regretted later.
Managed quite well without him?
“Sinclair, for goodness’ sake, please cease that har
rumphing. It’s making my head ache!”
“Yes, Grand-Mama.”
“And the eye-rolling.”
“Yes, Grand-Mama.”
“And the pouting.”
“Oh, no, Grand-Mama, Sin doesn’t pout,” Sebastian interrupted before Sin had a chance to answer, his green eyes alive with an unmistakable mischievous sparkle, and Sin braced himself for the sarcasm he knew would be poured over him. “Sin never pouts. He’s just being his ordinary solemn self—too boring and too occupied with much more important things.”
“Who are you calling boring, you bloody…”
“Enough!”
Sin looked up at his grandfather, who had quietly joined them and was now staring hard at them under his bushy eyebrows.
“You two have been at each other’s throats every day for the last couple of days, and it’s starting to get tiresome. Solve it or forget it. Just don’t force the rest of us to listen to you squabble.”
“It’s not my fault that…”
Hannibal held up a hand, and Sin closed his mouth. This was not the time to continue. His grandfather usually had the patience of a saint and almost never lost his temper with his children or grandchildren. But when he did…
“I’m sorry,” Sin and Sebastian mumbled, unanimous, and Hannibal gave them an approving nod.
“That’s my boys. Now scoot over and make some room for an old man to rest his tired legs.”
“They found Lady Nester’s grave,” the duchess enlightened her husband when he had made himself comfortable. “That awful man hadn’t placed her poor, tormented body with the rest of the family but instead put her in the most hidden spot possible.”
Hannibal sent a sympathetic glance, filled with warmth and care, toward Charmaine and Penelope. “If you want, I can have her moved here, to our private graveyard, so you can visit her whenever you feel so obliged.”
Sin looked at his wife, who looked as bland as ever. Not an emotion crossed her perfect face, not even the smallest shiver. Penelope, on the other hand, threw her crying self into the duke’s arms and hugged him close as she whispered, “Thank you.” The difference between the two sisters was almost ridiculous, his wife composed and cold as ice while her sister was a cuddly pot of sunshine.
It wasn’t the first time he’d secretly wished for a little of Penelope’s warmth and friendliness to rub off on Charmaine, and as always he felt like the worst cad ever to even consider it. Wasn’t it the perfect and serene Charmaine he had fallen in love with? The Incomparable Queen of the ton? So why did he sit here wishing her to be something she wasn’t?
He was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t realize she was talking to him until she put a hand on his arm. Oddly enough, he felt caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and he blushed, grateful for her not being able to hear what he had been thinking.
“Could I have a word in private?” Charmaine’s voice was as smooth as ever, but something in the way she grasped his arm told him this was important to her, and he nodded. They excused themselves from the rest of the Darling family, leaving the salon quickly, followed by his brother’s and his uncle’s teasing shouts about what they thought he and his wife were up to.
For a moment he wished the jokes were true. He found to his surprise that the thought of making love to his wife at this hour, in the middle of the day, was amazingly alluring. When they entered his study, he closed the door carefully behind them before turning the key with a lusty smile.
Why not give in to his urges for once, leave the ledger alone on the desk for an hour, and instead kiss his wife until he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.
Charmaine didn’t notice his action nor his mood. She was too busy pacing and wringing her hands, too upset about something to be able to stand still.
He removed his jacket as he sat down on a corner of the desk, beckoning Charmaine with a finger to come closer. She looked at him with suspicion, and he couldn’t blame her—he wasn’t acting at all like his usual busy self.
“Come,” he purred.
“No.” She frowned at him from the other side of the room. “I’ll stand here, thank you. I have something I must talk to you about, and I don’t need the distraction.”
So he was a distraction to her?
If he didn’t kiss her soon, he thought he would swoon of fatigue. He needed to feel her body, her warmth, her breath. Just looking at her from the other side of the room wasn’t enough. He wanted to know she belonged to him, that the woman he had loved for years was his to embrace whenever he wanted.
Sebastian’s speculations about her being bored in their marriage had disturbed him, and he guessed he had to change a few things between them to keep her more satisfied. And if one of those things was making love to her in the middle of the day, so be it.
The sacrifices he made for her...
Charmaine, who was blissfully unaware of her husband’s new unselfish stance toward her, continued with her walking and wringing. He managed to stay quiet and keep his patience for almost five minutes, an endurance worthy of a saint.
“I haven’t got all day!” he barked in the end, not able to sit there and watch her luscious body walk past him one more time without reaching out and dragging her closer.
Startled, she jumped at the sound of his explosive voice and a light blush crept over her smooth cheeks. To soothe his harsh words he sent her an encouraging smile, which only rendered him a suspicious glance from her narrowing eyes.
“I-I’m sorry,” she stuttered, something she normally never did, and he felt himself staring just as suspiciously back at her.
What was she up to? “Is there something wrong?”
She shook her head, then stopped and nodded. “Yes, to be truthful, there is. Something is terribly wrong, and I just don’t know how to…”
“Yes?” he probed as her voice trailed off.
Again she started to tread to and fro, and he couldn’t stop a deep sigh. “What is it, Charmaine? You seem quite distraught about something. Tell me. I’m your husband. You can tell me anything.”
She stopped and looked at him hesitantly, and again he felt that overwhelming urge to kiss her. She was just too alluring for him to listen to her. He could see her lips moving, but all he could think about was pressing his mouth gently against them, kissing her until she burnt for him just as much as he burnt for her.
“Promise me,” she said as she walked up to him, and he woke up from his daydream, realizing he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
“Eh…”
“Promise me!”
“Of course.”
She staggered against him, her relief obvious. “Thank you,” she breathed, and for a second he drew back, wondering what it had all been about. Her worry was too obvious and her relief too large for this to be about something unimportant. But just as he was about to ask her and admit he hadn’t heard a word, she threw her arms around his neck and did just what he had been fantasizing about—she kissed him.
All thoughts of her worries left him, and instead he kissed her back. Her response was immediate. He couldn’t believe the heat she awoke inside him. Her eager response had him weak with need, and before she had a chance to change her mind he lifted her into his arms and carried her over to the small sofa.
She seemed in a frenzy as her trembling hands tried to unbutton his pants, and it made him almost breathless with desire. To see her need for him was the most exciting thing he’d ever experienced, and with a groan he ripped the pants open and lifted her skirts, tearing all the silky undergarments in his way until he finally could thrust deep inside her shivering body.
She screamed into his mouth as she came, and soon he followed her. The climax was better than ever, and afterwards he fell heavily down on top of her, unable to hold himself up.
“Thank you,” she whispered again, and he chuckled, amused over her breathlessness.
“You are quite welcome, my dear.”
She pushed lightly on his chest, without words let
ting him know he was becoming too heavy, and he rolled off her with a satisfied sigh.
“I didn’t mean the lovemaking, although I am very much thankful for that too,” she said with a small, shy smile as she stood and straightened her clothes. “I meant about you staying indoors for now.”
He sat up in the sofa, frowning at her. “What are you talking about? I’m not staying indoors. I have loads of errands and visits to do.”
“But you promised!” She staggered backwards as if she weren’t able to stand by herself.
“I have promised you no such thing,” he snorted, leaving the sofa for his desk and flinging open his ledgers.
“But you just did, before the…before…”
“Before what?” he teased, but she was too distraught to play with him.
“I told you about the danger, and you promised me to stay indoors. You said so just before I kissed you.”
“What danger?” Her desperation was getting to him, and his frown deepened. “What are you talking about?”
She stared at him blankly. “I told you.”
“Well, I wasn’t listening. I was a bit preoccupied, staring at your kissable lips. What danger?”
Hesitantly she took a step back, and then another one. She stared at him with her unreadable eyes, and for some reason he was starting to feel a bit guilty for not having listened to her, as she had obviously been quite distressed—and still was.
“I’m listening now,” he urged, but she didn’t answer. “You can tell me now.”
“N-no.”
“Oh, come on. You have to tell me why you think I’m in danger. Is there someone out there who wants to get me?”
He chuckled again, too amused over the thought of her being this upset over nothing. He was a big man and quite able to protect himself from whatever danger she fantasized.
“You have to promise.” Her voice was high-pitched and shaky, as if echoing the fear in her heart.
“No. Not until you tell me why.”
“I can’t tell you why!” she cried out.
“Then I won’t stay indoors.”
“Please, Sin. I beg you to reconsider.”
The Beauty of You Page 16