Falling in Love Again

by Cathy Maxwell

  For a moment he weighed the idea of offering to take the reports over to Hanson this evening and giving her a chance to be alone, but then he changed his mind. He was determined to win her back. He’d lay siege to her heart, if he had to. He wasn’t going to give up, and he wasn’t going to make it convenient for her to ignore him.

  He placed his arm back around her shoulder and didn’t remove it until they arrived at the cottage door. Inside, he set the reports on the table. He held out his hands for the reports Mallory was holding. She’d grown very quiet and seemed to be staring at the coverlet and the faint damning stains. John cursed himself for not thinking ahead and burning the cover before bringing her back to the cottage.

  “Mallory, let me have the papers.”

  She passed them to him, going to a bit of trouble not to touch him.

  He stacked the reports neatly while wondering what his next step should be.

  “Why don’t I cook our supper?” he said, pretending nothing was wrong. He crossed to the hearth, took kindling from the basket, and started arranging a fire.

  “I’m not very hungry,” Mallory answered.

  “Well, I am,” he said, with forced cheerfulness. “I could eat a leg of lamb myself.”

  Mallory didn’t answer.

  He glanced at her over her shoulder as he reached for the tinder box on the mantel, and then froze. She was pulling the coverlet off the bed. “What are you doing?”

  She didn’t look at him. “I need to wash this.”

  “Now? Mallory, it will be dark in another hour. You won’t be able to see what you’re doing.”

  She ignored him, gathering the thin white coverlet in her arms. Then, picking up the wooden bucket and a bar of soap, she left the cottage.

  John swore softly under his breath and followed her out the door.

  Down at the bathing pond, Mallory knelt and began scrubbing at the stains. John came up quietly behind her. “Can I help?”

  She didn’t answer him or acknowledge his presence.

  Placing his heels right beside her, he stretched out on the grassy bank. “I think we should have a truce between us,” he said.

  Her hands stopped moving and her brows came together. “We already have a truce, remember, John? The bargain we made that you would grant me a divorce if I helped you recover your fortune?”

  John felt like a squirming schoolboy when she talked to him in that tone of voice. Why was he married to the one woman with the uncanny ability to make him feel like a complete ass? And she’d done it twice in one day!

  Lay siege, he reminded himself.

  As she returned to her wash, John cast about for a safe topic of conversation.

  “I’ve been thinking about Uncle Louis,” he said, deciding this was one thing she wouldn’t ignore. He was right. At the mention of Louis’s name, her hands paused a moment in their furious scrubbing.

  John continued. “I’ve been searching my memory for other facts and tidbits of information about him. I didn’t see him regularly, even after I returned from the war. The last time I saw him before the war was at our wedding. I remember him being quite taken with Craige Castle. Are there any pieces of information you can remember from your dealings with him?”

  As he talked, she picked up a rock and began pounding at the coverlet. The stains were no longer visible to John’s eye, yet she pounded and pounded and pounded as if she were attempting to purge herself of something more significant.

  John captured her fist around the rock. “Mallory, don’t do this. Please forgive me.”

  She bowed her head, staring at his hand over hers.

  John spoke from his heart. “I should have told you the truth about our wedding night. I didn’t realize you’d given up your own wishes and dreams to be a wife to me. I didn’t think of it that way, Mallory. I only thought of my own selfish desire to make us one…and we are one now. No matter how hard you try to pretend it’s not true, you know in your heart that we are destined to be together.”

  He wished she would turn to him so he could see her face. He needed to know if there was some softening in her attitude toward him. Then he felt a single, hot tear land on his hand.

  Hope sprang up inside him. She could forgive him. He knew it…and then she pulled her hand from his and started pounding away at the cover again.

  John sat back. He cursed the fates that he had married such a stubborn, willful woman—but he would have it no other way. Whether she admitted it or not, the armor she wore against him had chinks, and he vowed to work away at those places until she completely opened her heart to him.

  Suddenly, she threw the rock to the side with vehemence and broke down in quiet sobbing. He moved to take her in his arms.

  Mallory jerked away and came to her feet. She didn’t look at him. “I can’t let you close, don’t you see? I’m the most foolish of all women. I’ve fallen in love with a man who has betrayed me over and over again.”

  John rose from the bank. “Mallory, I promise it will never happen again—”

  “It has already happened two times too many,” she said, whirling on him. “If I let myself believe in you one more time and you use me again, you will destroy me. You’re too fickle to trust. It’s always what you want or what you think. I had no role in your life until you decided you were ready. Well, what about me? I have to consider my needs now, John, and I can’t let you hurt me. Not again.”

  She lifted her skirts and ran from the pond.

  John watched her leave. He’d caused her this pain, and it tore at his very soul. Yet didn’t her intense emotion mean that she cared…even a little?

  He looked down at the cover lying in the water. The first stars of the evening were coming out and he could see no stains. He picked up the coverlet, washed off the mud from where she’d thrown it down, and spread it over the bushes to dry.

  Filling the pail with water for the next day, he took it and the slippery bar of soap back to the cottage.

  Mallory had left the door open for him and John considered that a very good sign. He told himself it meant that she truly didn’t know her own mind anymore…that she was weakening.

  Resolved not to give up, he marched forward. The inside of the cottage was shadowy and silent. No candle had been lit, and he didn’t see Mallory immediately until his gaze turned to the bed. She lay there with the sheets practically pulled up over her head.

  “Mallory?”

  “I left the door open so you could get what you need to eat or whatever,” came her curt voice. She didn’t turn over to face him. “I expect you to sleep in the barn.”

  John closed the door, set the pail down by the door, and placed the bar of soap on the table. His desire to make amends battled with his irritation at her high-handed treatment. He crossed over to the bed. All he could see of her was the top of her toffee-colored hair and the tip of her obstinate little nose. Even though her eyes were closed, feigning sleep, he suspected she was every bit as aware of him as he was of her.

  Lay siege. He was her husband, not some lackey. If he wanted to win her back, he could not allow her to subject him to her whims.

  He removed his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. Returning to the bed, he began removing his shirt, watching her all the while. She didn’t stir as he folded it and laid it neatly at the foot of the bed.

  He sat down on the bed and began removing his boots. She didn’t rouse. He deliberately dropped the boot on the floor.

  She flinched.

  John smiled. He bent over and pulled off his other boot. He dropped this one on the floor also—but she didn’t respond.

  That was fine. He knew he had her attention. Pulling off his socks, he threw them down by his boots, stood, and facing her, began unbuttoning his breeches.

  First one button, then the second, and he’d started the third when she threw back the sheets and sat up. She wasn’t ready for bed at all but still wore her brown cambric dress. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’
m going to bed with my wife.” He flicked open the third button.

  “Oh, no, you’re not!”

  “Oh, yes, I am.” John pulled down his breeches, unashamed to let her see he was fully aroused and ready for her. He wanted her even now, when she was so angry she was practically spitting with fury.

  Mallory scooted closer to the wall on the other side of the bed. “Leave me alone.”

  But John wasn’t going to relent. He couldn’t, if he wanted to win her back. He placed his knee on the mattress. “I’m your husband,” he said quietly. “I love you. Your place is beside me on this bed.”

  Mallory scrambled off the mattress. She pushed down her tangled skirts and confronted him. “Never!”

  Sitting on the bed, John shook his head. “So dramatic….” He patted the spot next to him. “Now, come to bed, Mallory, and let us set aside our differences for one night. I promise I won’t bother you.”

  She cast a doubtful glance at his already aroused state and crossed her arms. “Now, let me see,” she said, angrily tapping one foot. “You expect me to believe that I can spend the night lying next to the most infamous rake in England and not expect him to attempt to seduce me?”

  John held his hands up in the air to show her he meant no tricks. “I want only to hold you.”

  “I’m not that green, John…not anymore.”

  “Very well, we shall not sleep together.” He bounced back on the bed and grabbed the sheets to cover his nakedness. “However, I am not going to be the one spending another night in the barn. It’s your choice, Mallory. You can either join me in bed, sleep on the floor, or toddle off to the barn.” Placing his hands behind his head, he stared up at the rafters. His ultimatum was a stroke of genius, and he considered for a moment that winning his wife was like a game of chess…and he had just said “checkmate.”

  He knew Mallory was glaring at him. Her body was radiating heat, she was so angry. But her voice was that of a true aristocrat—cool, calm, and slightly superior. “I shall take the barn, because it is the place furthermost from you.”

  John gritted his teeth. He didn’t want her to leave. His impulse was either to rise from the bed, grab hold of her and kiss her until she mindlessly confessed that she was madly in love with him…or relent and go to the barn himself, letting her have the bed.

  He refused to do the latter. He was a man, not a lap dog. He heard the door open. His whole body tensed as he willed himself to stay where he was.

  She paused in the doorway. So attuned was he to this woman, he could sense her presence. He heard her take a step out the door and then stop.

  Closing his eyes, John wished her to return to the bed—and then she started walking toward him. Her kid slippers were almost soundless as they crossed the hard dirt floor.

  Relief ran through him. She was backing down.

  He turned to her, ready to make amends and forgive her, when a pailful of cold water splashed right in his face.

  Mallory threw the bucket aside and it clattered into the corner. “I hope you enjoy your sleep,” she hissed, before storming out of the cottage.

  John sat up in the now soaking bed. He wiped his face, chest, and stomach with the already wet sheet. “Siege,” he reminded himself as he set his feet on the ground, pulled on his breeches, and chased after his wife.

  Chapter 16

  Young women they’ll run like

  bares on a mountain,

  If I were a young man,

  I’d soon go a bunting,

  To my right fol diddle dee.

  Young women they’ll sing like

  birds in the bushes,

  If I were a young man,

  I’d go bang those bushes,

  To my right fol diddle dee.

  “Hares on the Mountains”

  Mallory ran up to the barn, fearing John might be angry enough to follow her. Perhaps dousing him with the bucket of water hadn’t been a prudent action, but oh, she had enjoyed seeing him all wet. Nor would she apologize. Ever.

  When she reached the barn, she attempted to close the door, but the hinges were rusty and wouldn’t work. She abandoned that idea and ran down the row of stalls to the first one that was empty. She threw herself down on a clean bed of hay.

  The swaybacked coach horses were in the stalls on either side. They both nickered a greeting. She shushed them to be quiet.

  At that moment, a shadow crossed the barn door. Mallory held her breath.

  She strained her ears, listening for movement, but didn’t hear anything until he stood in the stall’s open entrance. He was wearing his breeches, a damp scowl, and little else. “Here you are.”

  Mallory sat up, her heart in her throat. “I thought you were going to sleep in the bed.”

  “It’s wet.”

  “I don’t want you here.”

  “I’m aware of that.” He turned and walked away.

  Mallory felt a small glimmer of surprise that he would give in so easily.

  The next moment, he was back carrying the horse blanket they’d used for their picnic. “Here, lie on this. It will make the hay more comfortable.”

  He flapped it up in the air and let it drift down to cover the hay.

  Warily, Mallory did as he’d suggested. Hay was not as comfortable to lie on as she’d imagined it would be. “Where are you going to sleep?”

  “Right here beside you.”

  Mallory struggled to get up, but John had knelt beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder to keep her in place. “You can leave, Mallory, but it won’t make a difference. I’ll follow wherever you go. I will sleep beside you tonight.”

  “And I was told chivalry was dead,” she answered, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  John pressed his lips together in a poor attempt to hide a smile.

  “I don’t want you in my bed.” She bit each word out.

  “I’m not here to make love to you—”

  “Oh, is that why you got yourself naked and ready?”

  He grinned at her and Mallory wanted to wipe the grin off his face with her nails. How dared he laugh at her when everything inside her was confused and jumbled?

  “Mallory, I won’t deny I want you…although the bucket of water in my face dampened my ardor some.” He sat down on the straw, leaving the blanket to her. “But my reaction to you is the natural reaction for a man when he’s around the woman he loves.”

  She clutched handfuls of the blanket, telling herself not to believe him. Last night he had initiated her into passion, and apparently she was a very good student because even now, when she was so dreadfully angry with him, she’d like nothing better than to melt into his embrace.

  She hid behind sarcasm. “Oh, John, please. Men are capricious characters. I’ve been made to understand that they feel an attraction like that for every woman who passes in front of them.”

  He pinned her with his gaze, his expression open and honest. “Mallory, I’m not a rutting animal. I’ve always had control over myself except when I was around you. I’ve been this way ever since I saw you standing by the pond with your gorgeous hair down.”

  “The pond?” she said doubtfully. “You mean the day Ruth was plastered naked against your body?”

  His teeth flashed white in the darkness. “Your jealousy gives me hope.”

  “I’m not jealous. I’m merely pointing out your fickle nature.”

  He leaned on one elbow. “I’m not fickle. I felt nothing for Ruth or any of the others. I love you.”

  Mallory covered her ears with her hands. “I don’t want to hear this. Stop saying it.”

  Reaching up, he pulled down her hand. “I won’t stop saying it, not ever.”

  “Yes? Well, you’ll never be my ideal of a husband.”

  “That’s because I don’t know what your ideal is!” John pulled her down on the blanket and on her side to face him. He didn’t let go of her hand. “Teach me, Mallory. Talk to me. I’ve never been a husband. I’ve only known one married couple who seemed happy i
n their marriage and that was Peterson and his wife, Liana. It seemed to me the difference between them and other couples, including my parents, was that they considered themselves partners, and Peterson never did anything without talking it over with his wife first. We used to tease him about it. Of course, Liana had a Latin temper. I certainly never wanted to make her angry. But I’m not afraid to face you.” He gave her a gentle squeeze. “I’m laying siege, Mallory, and I won’t give up until I win your heart.”

  “Siege?”

  “Yes, siege. It’s what we did in the army to capture a city behind high walls. We would camp right next to the city and wait. We wouldn’t give up until those walls came down.” He leaned toward her until they were almost nose to nose. “I’m not giving up, Mallory, not until I’ve torn down every wall between us.”

  In spite of her anger with him, she felt a small trill of excitement at his words. Did he really care so much that he would never give up? Test him and see, a small voice said inside her. Wait and watch.

  “I don’t care where you sleep,” she said. A fleeting expression that looked like disappointment appeared in his eyes and then vanished. She must have imagined it in the dark. She turned over to her side and surprised herself by falling almost immediately asleep.

  John woke her up shortly around dawn, before Terrell and the dairy maids arrived for work. He was already dressed for the day. The cuffs on his fine lawn shirt were frayed beyond repair, and Mallory couldn’t help but remember how fashionable he’d appeared that night at Lady Ramsgate’s party.

  While she was tending to her toilet by the stream beside the cottage, he prepared her tea and hauled fresh water from the bathing pond. She couldn’t stop herself from admitting drolly, “I could grow used to being under siege.”

  He answered with a quick laugh and carried the wet mattress out in the sun to dry.

  John headed up to the barn to set the others to work. He surprised Mallory by returning later that morning. She was kneading bread dough when he poked his head in the door.

  “I’ve just learned that Tuesday is market day in Horsham,” he said. “Is that where we’ll find harvesting crews?”