October Revenge

by Farmer, Merry

  “He’ll be furious,” Herbert said before the question could be answered. He had the decency to lower his voice as he went on with, “He’s had Gatwick’s balls in a vise for decades now, and he’ll not be pleased to find someone else applying the pressure.”

  “No indeed,” Denbigh chuckled. “Though I doubt Shayles feels too kindly toward the man at all after this spring.”

  “No, not at all.” Herbert shook his head and clucked with mock seriousness.

  Angelica’s jaw was clenched so hard that her teeth hurt. It was as though the two men couldn’t see Mark standing right in front of them as they hurled their insults. Worse still, it was as if they knew full well he was there and they didn’t care. The pair seemed to think they could insult Mark with impunity. And neither had fully or formally introduced themselves to her. She had no idea if Denbigh and Herbert were misters or lords or princes.

  Worst of all, Mark stood where he was, a bored expression on his pale face as though he hadn’t heard a word either man said. It was clear from the rock hardness of his arm under her hand that he had heard everything and knew what it all meant on every level. He’d made no secret from the start that he wasn’t well-liked.

  Denbigh and Herbert continued to send each other wry glances and suggestive snorts.

  “Do you suppose Gatwick has the first clue what to do with a fine filly like that one?” Denbigh asked.

  Angelica had had enough. Without another word to the odious pair or so much as a look, she steered Mark to one side and marched off with him, doubling her earlier too-swift pace. She was half surprised that Mark followed her so easily.

  When they crossed through two galleries and turned a corner into a third, much smaller one, he let out a hissing breath of irritation.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t expect to encounter the likes of them.”

  “Friends of yours?” she asked in a sardonic, wary tone.

  “Friends of Shayles,” Mark grumbled.

  “I’m beginning to grasp what that means.”

  He glanced at her with deep anxiety in his eyes.

  “You were right,” she went on, her tone still firm, but in a way that sought to comfort him at the same time. “You don’t have any friends.” And now she understood that could be a good thing instead of a reason for pity.

  A bit of the sharp tension that gripped him seemed to ease. He reached to rest his free hand over hers as it rested in the crook of his elbow. Coming from Mark—and in a public place—it was a powerful sign of affection.

  “Perhaps we should return to the townhouse,” he said, pivoting to look for a way out.

  His efforts were cut short as another man turned away from the painting he’d been studying and spotted them. His brow rose. “Lord Gatwick.”

  Mark tensed all over again. Angelica braced herself for another onslaught of horrid behavior. But the gentleman who approached them had an entirely different demeanor than Denbigh and Herbert. He was tall, a bit gangling, with a face that seemed to be designed for the comic stage, and yet his manner was serious and, surprisingly, respectful.

  “Sir Christopher.” Mark bowed stiffly to the man.

  Sir Christopher met the bow with one of his own. His uncertain movements gave Angelica the sense that the man wasn’t used to formality. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said, a smile softening his features and making him appear foolish, though Angelica suspected he was anything but.

  “I didn’t expect to be here myself,” Mark answered. His manner was just as guarded as with Denbigh and Herbert, but Angelica sensed they were in an entirely different situation. “Allow me to introduce my wife, Lady Gatwick,” he said when Sir Christopher peeked curiously at Angelica.

  Sir Christopher’s face lit up, dropping years from his appearance. “Congratulations,” he said with a wide smile, reaching for Mark’s hand and shaking it vigorously. “I hadn’t heard you’d married.”

  “It is not common knowledge,” Mark replied.

  Sir Christopher smiled at Angelica and executed a gallant bow. “Sir Christopher Dowland, at your service, Lady Gatwick.”

  Angelica was charmed, half because of Sir Christopher’s openness and half because he didn’t seem to have a firm grasp on the vagaries of social protocol. “It is a pleasure to meet you, sir,” she said. Then, because curiosity demanded it, she couldn’t help but ask, “How do you know my husband?”

  Sir Christopher grinned. “I had the pleasure of meeting him in the halls of Westminster, although Lord Gatwick sits in the House of Lords and I’m in Commons.”

  “Oh?” Angelica’s interest was piqued. She hadn’t stopped to consider that Mark was a member of Parliament. She had no more of an idea of how the British government worked than she did of how to build a cotton gin, but she was impressed all the same.

  “We have mutual friends,” Sir Christopher went on. “Lord Helm, Lord Malcolm, and Lord Dunsford, among others.”

  Angelica faced Mark with a surprised smile. “Mutual friends?” she asked, putting the emphasis on the last word.

  “I’m sure Sir Christopher uses the term loosely,” Mark said in a quiet voice.

  “Perhaps there was some tension in the past,” Sir Christopher went on with the air of someone who didn’t realize he was speaking about things best left silent. “When Lord Gatwick was part of Lord Shayles’s bunch. But everyone in London, everyone with half a brain knows that’s not the case anymore.”

  “Do they?” Angelica glanced from Mark to Sir Christopher and back again. Mark looked panicked, as if he wasn’t prepared for what Sir Christopher was blabbing and as though he might be sick because of it. That didn’t stop Angelica from hanging on Sir Christopher’s every word, though.

  “Your husband is a hero,” Sir Christopher said, sending Angelica’s brow up to her hairline. “He pretty much single-handedly saw to it that Shayles was convicted this spring. The outcome of the trial was far from certain, even though every man in the room knew just how guilty Shayles was. None of them were willing to take a stand against the bast—I mean, the villain, though. Not until Gatwick here, Shayles’s closest associate, stood up and declared him guilty. It was like bowling pins falling over after that.”

  Angelica blinked at Mark. “Is that true?”

  Mark took in a quick breath. “Yes.”

  She could tell that he wasn’t going to elaborate, but she felt as though his life story had just been laid out in front of her all the same.

  “It’s a bloody shame that Shayles wasn’t sent away for life,” Sir Christopher went on. “But he was exposed for what he truly is. I’m sure that countless women and men will live safer lives and sleep better at night thanks to what Lord Gatwick was able to do.”

  “What a wonderful thing to say.” Angelica smiled.

  “We need to go,” Mark said.

  “By all means.” Sir Christopher nodded, still smiling. “Far be it from me to keep you from your business.” He paused, then went on with, “I would be honored to host you for dinner while I’m in town. I won’t be here long. This is merely a quick visit to take care of estate business before Parliament sits again next month. I will accommodate my schedule to yours.”

  “We won’t be in town long,” Mark said, then bowed stiffly and said, “Good day, Sir Christopher.”

  He swept Angelica out of the room as though they were running from another encounter like Denbigh and Herbert instead of what she considered to be a pleasant meeting.

  “And you claim not to have friends,” she chided him as they exited the galleries and started down the long, wide stairs to the entrance.

  “I don’t have friends,” Mark said.

  She sent him a flat stair. “Sir Christopher was perfectly delightful. He invited us to supper. I hate to say it, but you were a bit rude to him.”

  Mark shook his head. “Sir Christopher is a fine fellow, but the others he mentioned, Lord Malcolm, Dunsford, their friend Waltham—” He shook his head harder. “They see me as a
suspicious aberration at best. They view me as my cousin, Helm, does—as a dog that might be rabid and needs to be kept at arm’s length.”

  Angelica opened her mouth to contradict him, but nothing came out. Armand had been frosty at best to Mark during his and Lavinia’s stay. She wondered how the other men Sir Christopher had mentioned would react if they’d been in Armand’s position at Blackmoor Close.

  Mark’s driver was waiting for them in front of the National Gallery once again, and within minutes they were tucked back in the carriage, making their way home to Mayfair. Angelica’s thoughts continued to burn, though. One afternoon in London, and she had a growing feeling that she was seeing the entire picture of Mark’s life, not just the tiny segment she’d been looking at thus far. Mark hadn’t said a word to her that wasn’t true. She could see that he wasn’t well-liked—except where he was, by Sir Christopher and his staff—and his reputation wasn’t sterling—except when it came to the trial of Lord Shayles and his part in it.

  As the carriage turned onto Hill Street, a sudden memory struck her, one that fit everything into place. She’d known an old man in New Orleans, a man who shined shoes and ran errands for the businessmen whose premises were close to Grandpa Miles’s. Old Abe had been enslaved for most of his life. He’d worked in the fields of a huge plantation in Mississippi before the war and emancipation. He was a free man, but it was apparent at a glance that he still wore the shackles in his heart. Angelica had gone out of her way to be friendly to him and to encourage him, but at the first sight of a white man with an angry expression, Abe would cave in on himself as if he feared the lash would fall at any moment.

  Mark still carried the shackles of his time at Lord Shayles’s side. That much was obvious to Angelica. What she still didn’t know a thing about was what those shackles truly were and what that life with Lord Shayles had been like.

  “If you had such potential friends as Sir Christopher and those men he mentioned,” she asked as he helped her down from the carriage and escorted her into his townhouse, “then why did you not take advantage of their offers of friendship instead of staying with Lord Shayles?”

  They hadn’t spoken a word on the entire drive home, and Mark practically flinched at her direct question.

  “Those overtures of friendship were not there,” he explained simply, a hint of defensiveness in his tone. “At no time in the past twenty-five years did any of those people Sir Christopher mentioned make the slightest indication that they would accept me into their circle.”

  Pity squeezed Angelica’s chest. “Would you have befriended them if they had been more welcoming to you?”

  He shrugged, helping her remove her coat. “We’ll never know.”

  He handed her coat to Templeton, then removed his own, along with his hat.

  “Supper is ready to be served, my lord,” Templeton said in a quiet voice, as if loath to disturb the conversation.

  Mark nodded, then offered his arm to escort Angelica on to the dining room.

  “People become locked within their reputations at an early age,” he said, almost as though speaking to himself, as they walked. “It is as difficult to shake the role one is cast in as it is to climb a mountain with your bare hands. My father warned me of as much all through my boyhood. And it wasn’t as though I didn’t listen, but by the time I finished grieving—” He stopped and cleared his throat, his face pinched. “Shayles was and, I believe, is a strong influence. He guards what he believes is his jealously. By the time I realized I was caught in his web, it was too late.”

  “Too late for what?” Angelica asked.

  He didn’t answer. She didn’t truly expect him to. Mark doled out information and words in his own time, and pushing him along accomplished nothing. Though it was a bitter pill to swallow, knowing there was nothing she could do to speed the process of opening him up.

  At least, there was nothing she could do to speed the process with words. There were other ways to coax a man to open up, and it was about time she tried them.

  It had quickly become routine for Angelica and Mark to share a bed at night, but as they slipped between the sheets and Mark leaned over to blow out the lamp that night, she deliberately crossed the unspoken territorial lines of the bed by scooting up against him as soon as he lay on his back.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, flinching.

  “I’m getting frisky with my husband,” she answered mischievously, reaching for the buttons of his pajama top.

  He seemed to hover in a moment of indecision, the potential for movement that would whisk him out of bed and away from her latent in him. But he didn’t move.

  “Is this really necessary?” he asked in a tight voice.

  “Yes.” She gave her monosyllabic answer the same way he would and continued to unbutton his shirt, exposing his chest.

  His lips pinched and his mouth twitched as though he wanted to come up with an answer, but she’d left him no room to do so. She undid the last button and pushed the folds of his shirt aside. He tensed under her touch at first, but when she did nothing more than draw one hand lazily across his pectoral muscles and his stomach, he began to relax.

  It was nice just to touch him. She had the feeling that he hadn’t been touched nearly enough in his life. She propped herself on one arm and inched the bedcovers down so that she could watch what she was doing. Mark was fit for a man of his age, but then she’d never seen him overindulge in food or drink, and he enjoyed their daily walk as much as she did. It was odd to think that in spite of his long association with Lord Shayles, he was a man without vices.

  It was also odd to think of him so remotely when he was lying right there beside her, patiently and silently letting her brush her fingertips across his skin and play with his nipples. She pulled herself out of her thoughts and smiled at his confused expression.

  “You like this, don’t you?” she asked, unable to keep from gloating as she drew her hand up to push his shirt off his shoulders.

  He pursed his lips and let out a breath through his nose. “Are you going to use it against me if I say that I do?” he asked.

  Angelica managed to keep herself from squealing in victory. “No,” she answered. “I may hold other things against you, though.”

  He frowned up at her. “Like what?”

  She dipped closer and whispered in his ear, “Like my body.” She followed her seductive comment by nibbling on his earlobe.

  He sucked in a breath and moved impatiently. Angelica let her hand slip lower, across his abdomen. She caught the ties of his pajamas and tugged them loose, then slipped a hand below his waist. He caught his breath a second time and let it out on a groan as she brushed her hand down his penis and cupped his balls.

  “You like this too,” she told him with a sly smile as she played with him.

  For someone who had as little experience with the male form as she had, she was impressed with herself for being so bold. It felt natural with Mark, though, and the fact that he was obviously more reserved than her in such matters only made her bolder. She tested the weight of his sack in her hand, then stroked slowly up his hardening length, wanting to learn everything she could about how that part of him functioned and reacted.

  “You haven’t answered me,” she reminded him, learning the flare and shape of his tip with her fingers.

  “It wasn’t a question,” he managed to grind out.

  She laughed low in her throat. “Do you like this too?” she asked trying not to laugh with the joy of it all.

  He was slow to answer, so she closed her hand around his thick shaft and worked him slowly. She may have had zero personal experience, but her friends in New Orleans had talked about their husbands and lovers and the things they liked. She wasn’t completely ignorant.

  Mark’s breathing was deep and ragged. His body had heated noticeably under her ministrations. He’d grown so hard as she toyed with him that she wondered if he would come from that alone.

  “Well?” she asked, running
her thumb over the tip of his penis and finding moisture there.

  “Yes,” he answered at last, letting out a powerful breath. He relaxed as he did, as if letting go of the idea that he shouldn’t.

  “Would you like it even more if something other than my hand were pleasuring you?” she asked with a wicked lift of one brow.

  He stared up at her, cheeks red, as if trying to gauge what she meant. “Yes,” he answered at last. “I think I would.”

  A thrill of excitement curled through Angelica’s core. She was more than ready to explore all the ways that she and Mark could work together as husband and wife. Too giddy to say another teasing word, she shifted to straddle him, then sat up.

  He drew in a breath as her movement exposed him, pushing the bedcovers down to his thighs. Her nightgown hid them both for a moment before Angelica reached for the hem and drew it up over her head, tossing it aside. Mark made a sound of appreciation as she exposed herself to him. He was a sight himself laid out beneath her, his chest and stomach exposed, his erection large and resting straight up against his abdomen.

  Slowly, he rested his hands on her hips, caressing her with a heady mixture of hesitation and need. His eyes followed his touch as he brushed his hands across her stomach and up to her breasts. She leaned forward enough for him to cup her breasts and explore them with his palms and thumbs, working her nipples into tender nubs. His touch ignited a fire deep within her that she was eager to stoke and explore until it consumed her, but she forced herself to be patient.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered as he stroked her sides again, teasing one hand toward the curls between her legs. “And erotic.”

  She swallowed the teasing comment she wanted to make, angling her hips toward his touch instead. He slipped his hand between her legs, brushing her sex in a way that felt so good she couldn’t help but sigh with pleasure.

  “I’m not completely ignorant, you know,” he continued, raking a finger across her wet entrance. “I do know what gives a woman pleasure.”

  He proved his statement by thrusting his finger inside of her, causing her to gasp. He ground the base of his hand against her clitoris as he did, providing just enough friction and pressure to leave her gasping for breath.