Читать книгу The Regency Season: Shameful Secrets: From Ruin to Riches / Scandal's Virgin - Louise Allen - Страница 15

Chapter Seven

Will rolled over on to his back and opened his eyes. Above him, lit by the early morning light, was the familiar dark blue of the bed canopy. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and focused on the stars embroidered in silver thread by some long-ago ancestress. Home. He really was home.

Without turning his head he stretched out a hand as he had every morning since he had finally accepted that he was not about to die. Beside him the bed was empty, the covers flat, the pillow smooth and cool. No one was there, of course.

Julia had not been very communicative last night, not after the brief verbal tussle over where he was sleeping. Which she had won, he reflected. For one night, at any rate. He was hard, aroused, but then he was every morning since he had recovered.

Will threw back the covers with an impatient hand and let the cool air of dawn flow over his naked, heated body. He had made his bed and now, he supposed, he must lie on it. Not that it would be such a hardship to lie with Julia. His mouth curved at the memory of her in that pink silk last night. He had thought about her these past years, but the memories had been of her spirit and her intelligence, not of her looks.

But marrying Julia had been a brilliant piece of improvisation by a dying man. A marriage of convenience that he had expected to last mere months. For a man with the prospect of a long life ahead of him it was a sentence to a loveless but solid and respectable future.

Or, given the hideous example of his own parents’ convenient marriage, loveless and cold, although, if he had anything to do with it, not spectacularly scandalous. He winced at the remembrance of the raised voices, the banging doors, the sniggers at school and the oh-so-careful reports in the scandal sheets—It is said that a certain Lady D—... It is the talk of the town that Lord D—’s latest companion...

All those lies, all the pretence. His father pretending he was not unfaithful, his mother pretending her heart was not broken, both of them lying to him, fobbing him off, whenever he asked if anything was wrong, when Papa would be home, why Mama was weeping again. It had felt as though they simply did not care enough about him to talk to him, to explain, to comfort the confused small boy. Looking back, he saw no reason to modify that explanation.

Thousands married without love and managed to live perfectly affectionate, civilised, faithful lives, he knew that. But, for a man who had once dreamed of something more for himself, it was a damnably unpleasant place to be. He had lived with a vision of bringing love back to Knight’s Acre and he had to accept that now he never would. He could sense that Julia would find it difficult to have him home and he could understand her feelings.

The night before he had told Jervis to leave the curtain drawn back. Now the sun flooded in through the window and he gazed down the long avenue of oaks towards the glimmer of the lake in the distance while he found his equilibrium again. He had managed to survive a death sentence, the loss of his betrothed and exile from the place he loved with a bone-deep passion. He had taken a gamble to save King’s Acre and if he had not, and had stayed, he would be dead by now and Henry in his place.

You’re an ungrateful devil, he told himself. He was alive, well and had an intelligent, attractive wife. King’s Acre had been in good hands, he felt confident of that. Of course Julia had been cool and had wanted to sleep alone last night. After all, she was a virgin and was probably shaken to the core to have her virtually unknown husband turn up without notice. That would change and he would be careful with her. And she would realise this morning that the master of the house had returned and she could place all the business affairs in his hands and, no doubt, be glad to shed the responsibility.

But for now the house was quiet in the dawn light. Down in the kitchens a yawning scullery maid would be riddling the grate and making up the range to heat water for the other servants. Up here all would be undisturbed for at least an hour.

King’s Acre lay open and waiting for him, like a mistress awaiting her lover’s return, and he would savour it, rediscover it and his hoarded, happy memories. Will pulled on a brocade robe and, without bothering to find his slippers, opened the door on to his dressing room.

He wandered from room to room, looked out of windows, touched furniture, picked up trinkets. Under his fingers the house came to life again in a myriad of textures: polished wood and rough tapestry; smooth porcelain, cold metal; cut glass and ornate ormolu. His eyes lingered on favourite paintings, achingly remembered views, familiar spaces. In his nostrils was the smell of lavender and beeswax, wood smoke and, unsettlingly unfamiliar, a hint of the perfume he remembered from Julia’s skin as he had carried her into the retiring room the evening before.

On this upper floor every door opened to him. At the other end of the main passageway lay the oak panels leading to the bedchamber Julia was using and he passed that by. Today she would move her things into the suite next to his and that would put an end to this nonsense of sleeping apart.

The final door, the one beyond her dressing room, did not open. Will twisted the handle, pushed, expecting it to have stuck. But it stayed firm. Beyond, he recalled, was a small room with a pretty curve to the wall where it fitted into one of the old turrets. There was no reason for it to be locked. Thwarted, he frowned. It could wait, of course. He would get the key... But the rest of the rooms had opened to him as if welcoming him back, giving themselves up again to their master. It jarred that this one remained blankly inaccessible.

Frustrated, Will hit the panels with his clenched fist. The sound echoed down the quiet corridor like a hammer blow.

A sharp intake of breath was all the warning he got that he was not alone. When he turned Julia was standing in the doorway of her room, her eyes wide, one hand clenched in the ruffles of her robe.

* * *

Will should not look so much bigger in a robe with bare feet and yet he seemed to fill the space. His eyes ran over her as she stood there in the flimsy summer robe until she felt naked and exposed.

‘I am sorry, I did not mean to wake you. I was surprised to find the door locked.’

‘There are just some things stored in there,’ she said vaguely. ‘Did you need the room? I will have it cleared.’ Oh, I am such a fool! Why didn’t I do it before? I don’t need an empty nursery to remind me of the child I lost. Can I tell him now? No. All night she had tossed and turned, trying to think how she would break the news of what she had discovered after he had left.

‘No, I don’t care about the room,’ Will said. ‘But may I come into yours?’

‘My bedchamber? But, why?’

‘Why?’ One dark brow rose and his smile became sensual. That look had been in Jonathan’s eyes that night in the inn. Her pulse spiked. ‘I am your husband,’ Will pointed out.

‘But our marriage was only a sham, a device. You cannot expect to...to come to my bed just like that, without any discussion, without giving me any time—I hardly know you!’

‘Then I suggest we make up for lost time.’ His expression softened. ‘I find you very attractive, Julia. Do I...frighten you? Is that it?’

He was so close she could see the individual stubble of his night-beard, see the crisp curl of hair in the vee of his robe. He is naked under it, just as I am beneath mine. He was a virile, attractive man. Head and heart and body seemed to be at war in her. Her feminine reactions to him were primal, she could not help them, she knew that. Even before, when he had been so ill, she had felt that flicker of heat, that attraction. And it was her duty to lie with him, she had taken everything he offered her and been grateful for it.

‘No,’ she admitted and saw the tension leave him.

But... She swallowed as he came closer still. She only had to close her eyes and she thought of Jonathan, his hands impatient, the painful thrusting into her body, his sneers, the betrayal. And he had left her with child.

Will reached out and pulled her against him and then there was nothing but those amber eyes holding hers as he lowered his head and kissed her. One hand slid up to hold her head and his fingers sifted into the mass of hair, loosened from its night-time plait. With the other arm he encircled her shoulders. She felt herself become stiff, unyielding, as reactions and instincts warred within her.

Will was overwhelming. Overwhelmingly big, overwhelmingly male. His mouth, as it crushed down on hers, was unlike anything she had experienced or imagined.

His tongue slid along the tight seam of her lips, seeking entrance, and she tasted him, felt his heat. This is not Jonathan. Suddenly her body was fluid, curving against his, only thin muslin and thick silk separating their bare flesh.

Jonathan had not seemed to want to kiss her much. There had been romantic, respectful kisses when he was courting her. Fleeting caresses that she now knew to be hypocritical ploys. When he had taken her to his bed she had ached for kisses, had wanted their reassurance, but he had been urgent, focused on sheathing himself in her body and, she realised now, reaching his own satisfaction.

She tensed at the memory, transferring those feelings to Will, wanting to reject him, but her body was sending her clamouring messages of need, of surrender. Of desire. He felt so strong against her. The thrust of his erection pressed against her belly. His skin smelt of musk and, faintly, of last evening’s shaving soap. His morning beard was rough against her cheeks.

Her body wanted to be seduced. Her common sense, squeaking faintly to be heard against the clamour of emotion, told her that he was her husband, that she should simply allow herself to be swept off to his bed.

No. Will’s tongue probed along her lips, seeking entrance. Some instinct that she did not dare to quite trust murmured that he would not force her. But he will make my body force me, she argued back. He thinks he holds every card, the arrogant devil.

Then take control, don’t let him dominate you so. As she thought it she felt her body melting, answering him, demanding with as much urgency as his was. He used his strength and she could not match it, but she could use it against him as a wrestler uses his opponent’s weight to overbalance him.

Damn you, Will Hadfield, Julia thought as she opened her lips, felt the triumphant surge of his tongue. You will be my husband, not my master. Rather than yield she would give as good as she got. Her own tongue met his, boldly, and then she lost track of time, of coherent thought and, certainly, of speech.

Will kissed as though this meeting of mouths was the sex act in itself: hot, demanding, intimate. She had no idea what she was doing as her tongue tangled and duelled with his, as the taste of him filled her and her ears were deafened by the sound of his breathing and her thundering heart.

His robe was too thick. Touch him. Julia pushed it back and found naked skin, hot and smooth over shifting, hard muscle. She wanted to bite, to kiss...

His hands came down, over her back, down to her waist and he pulled her against him and she felt the hard ridge of arousal pressed against her stomach and the memory of the pain came back, sweeping away the passion in a cold flood.

Will released her, stepped back his expression rueful. ‘I have frightened you. For a moment I forgot you were a virgin, Julia. It will be all right, I promise you.’

‘Yes, of course.’ From somewhere she found a smile.

‘Those few days we were together before we married—we are still those people. I have not changed so very much and I doubt you have either. We trusted each other. There was liking, I think. We can build on that. And attraction as we have just proved.’

Attraction, yes. She nodded, it was impossible to pretend otherwise. Trust. But I lied to you. You married a woman who killed a man. I was a fugitive. And now I have to tell you I bore, and lost, that man’s child and I have to beg you to acknowledge it as yours. If I let you lie with me then the marriage is consummated and I will have trapped you.

‘I’ll let you get dressed,’ Will said. ‘We’ll meet at breakfast and talk afterwards. You can move into the chamber next to mine and this will all be all right, you’ll see, Julia.’

‘Thank you.’ Her smile was slipping, but it was only a few steps to her chamber. Julia closed the door behind her with care. She was shaking, but she made herself walk to the armchair at the window, not collapse on the bed. She would be in control, she would not panic.

Before she slept with him she had to tell him the truth. Not all of it, not that she was responsible for Jonathan’s death, but about the elopement and about the baby. She owed it to him to be honest about that before he made love to her.

He would be angry, and shaken, but she had to hope he would understand and forgive her the deception because there was only so much weight her conscience could bear.

Once she had thought that the guilt and fear over Jonathan’s death would lessen, that she could forget. But it did not go away. It was always there and so was the pain and loss of her child, the two things twisting and tangling into a mesh of emotions that were always there waiting to trip her, snare her, when she was least expecting it. And now Will was home there was the added guilt of keeping her crime from him. But it was not a personal shame like her elopement or the pregnancy. This was a matter of law and she could not ask him to conceal what she had done.

The sensitive skin of her upper arms where Will had held her still prickled with the awareness of his touch. Her mouth was swollen and sensitive and the ache between her thighs was humiliatingly insistent.

He was her husband. She owed him as much truth as she could give him and, unfair though it might be, she wanted something in return. I want a real marriage.

Papa had taught her to negotiate. Know what your basic demands are, the point you will not shift beyond, he had told her. Know what you can afford to yield, what you can give to get what you want. He had been talking about buying land and selling wheat, but the principles were surely the same.

Julia lay back in the chair, closed her eyes against the view of the garden coming to life in the strengthening sunlight, and tried to think without emotion. She could not risk the marriage: that was her sticking point. She wanted her husband’s respect, and equality in making decisions about their lives and that included the estate and the farm. She wanted him to desire her for herself, not just as a passive body in his bed to breed his sons. Sons. The emotion broke through the calculation. Could she bear that pain again? Could she carry another child, knowing what it would be like to lose it before it had even drawn a breath?

Yes. Because if I am not willing to do that, then the marriage cannot stand. I made a bargain and I cannot break it. She felt one tear running down her cheek, but she did not lift her hand to wipe it away.