Читать книгу Wicked in the Regency Ballroom: The Wicked Earl / Untouched Mistress - Margaret McPhee, Margaret McPhee - Страница 12

‘Madeline.’ His voice was honeyed, but beneath the sweetness she knew there was venom. ‘My love,’ he whispered against her ear. His lips, hard and demanding, trailed over her jaw. ‘Did you think that you could escape me, my sweet?’ Bony fingers clawed at her arms, raking her flesh, tearing at her dress. ‘There’s a name for women like you.’

‘No,’ she whispered.

‘I know the truth,’ he said, his mouth curving to reveal those small sharp teeth. She looked up into the eyes of Cyril Farquharson. ‘And I’m coming to get you. Tregellas cannot stop me from taking what is mine.’

‘No.’ Madeline shook her head, denying the words she dreaded so much. Nausea churned in her stomach. Fear prickled at her scalp and crept up her spine.

The blow hit hard against her cheek. Breath shuddered in her throat. She staggered back, searching for an escape, running towards the door. Her skirts wound themselves around her legs, contriving to trip her, pulling her back to him. She fought against them, reaching out towards the doorknob. Her fingers grasped at the smooth round wood. Turned.

Pulled. The door held fast. The handle rattled uselessly within her clasp. Panic rose. She wrenched at it, scrabbled at it, kicked at the barrier. And then she felt the hot humid breath against the back of her neck and the gouge of his nails as he tore her round to face him.

‘No, please, Lord Farquharson, I beg of you. Please do not!’

Cyril Farquharson only laughed and the sound of it was evil to the core. He was laughing as he ripped open her bodice to expose her breast, and still laughing as he raised the dagger ready to plunge it into her heart.

‘No!’ Madeline screamed. ‘No! No!’

‘Madeline.’

Madeline’s eyes flew open with a start to find herself sitting up in the bed with a man’s strong arms around her. Fear surged strong and real. Farquharson? She struggled against him.

‘It’s all right.’ The voice was calm and soothing. ‘You’ve had a nightmare.’ Cool fingers stroked at her head and then ran over her cheeks to gently tilt her face round to look at his. ‘Farquharson isn’t here. It’s just a bad dream.’

‘Lucien?’ The word trembled, as did the rest of her. Her heart still kicked in her chest and her throat felt like its sides had stuck together. Slowly she remembered the room in the White Hart and saw the dying embers of the fire across on the hearth.

Firm lips touched to her forehead, murmuring words of comfort. ‘Go back to sleep, Madeline. I’m here, nothing can harm you.’

The darkness was so thick as to mask him. Just the hint of the angle of a jaw and the suggestion of a nose. She moved her hands up to his face, lightly caressing his features. ‘Lucien?’ she said again, touching her fingers against the stubble on his chin.

‘Yes,’ came the deep reassuring voice that she had come to recognise. He eased her back down against the bed, pulling the covers up and tucking them around her. ‘You should go back to sleep. You’re safe. I’ll be watching over you.’ His fingers trailed a tender caress against her cheek as he moved away.

His skin had felt cold against hers. Madeline sat back up, peering towards the fireplace. ‘Lucien?’

‘Mmm?’ There was the sound of a woollen blanket being arranged and the creak of the wooden chair beneath his weight.

The air within the room was not warm. Madeline shivered against its chill. No wonder he was freezing, sitting in that uncomfortable little chair all night with just one thin blanket against the plummeting temperature. ‘You … you could come and sleep over here.’

Silence. As if he hadn’t heard what she’d just suggested.

But Madeline had felt his weariness and the chill in his limbs. ‘There’s plenty of room for us both and it’s nice and warm. Much better, I’d guess, than that chair.’

A moment’s hesitation and then from the other side of the room, ‘Thank you, Madeline, but my honour does not allow me.’

Madeline stifled a snort. Lord, but he had the pride of the devil. She dozed for what was left of the night, stealing looks into the darkness, guarding against the return of Farquharson, even if it was in her dreams.

The next day both Lucien and Madeline were tired and wan-faced. A hasty breakfast and then their journey resumed, moving slowly, increasingly closer to Cornwall and the Tregellas country estate. They travelled along the Dorchester Road, making good progress despite the chill wind. A brief stop at the Three Swans in Salisbury for lunch and then they pushed on, travelling further south as the daylight dimmed and the dark clouds gathered. The rain, when it started at first, was a collection of a few slow drops. But each drop was heavy and ripe, bursting to release a mini deluge. One drop, then another, and another, faster and faster, until the road was a muddied mess of puddles, and the rain battered its din against the coach’s feeble body. They put up for the night at The Crown in Blandford, a coaching inn that had none of the welcome of the White Hart, and was filled with travellers wishing to escape the worst of the downpour. Only the production of several guineas served to procure them a room for the night and the shared use of a small parlour. They ate hurriedly, exchanging little conversation, listening to the hubbub of noise that drifted in from the public room, and the batter of wind and rain against the windows.

Lucien downed the remainder of the brandy and scanned the faces around the room. Old men, young men, peasants, servants, farmers and gentlemen. The weather was an effective leveller of class. Even the odd woman, hag-faced, sucking on a pipe, or young with an obvious display of buxom charm. But thankfully the face that Lucien sought was not present. He wondered how long it would be before Farquharson would come after them, for he had not one doubt that he would. Now he knew that Farquharson would never call him out. The weasel wasn’t man enough to face him again across an open field. Farquharson would use different methods altogether. The lure had worked, just not in the way that Lucien might have imagined. Farquharson would be part of the gossip: an object of ridicule, someone to be pitied. That was not something that Cyril Farquharson was likely to suffer for long. With cold and deliberate calculation Lucien had unleashed the demon. Farquharson would come for him now, at long last. Finally, after all these years. The satisfaction was tempered by the knowledge that he would not be Farquharson’s only target.

He remembered the expression on Farquharson’s face the last time he had looked at Madeline, when he had spoken so cruelly to the woman who was now Lucien’s wife. She was a softer, easier target for revenge and one that would enable Farquharson to score Lucien’s old wounds afresh. And in that memory he realised that it was Madeline that Farquharson would target. Lucien’s mouth compressed to a hard line. He had promised her safety. And, by God, she would have it. When Farquharson came, Lucien would be ready. He blinked the fatigue from his eyes, wondering if Madeline would be beneath the covers yet. Then he sat the glass upon the wooden counter and slowly took himself up the stairs that led to their chamber.

He shifted restlessly in the small hard chair, feeling the ache in his shoulders and back growing stronger by the minute. His head was foggy with exhaustion, his eyes gritty and sore. Yet still merciful sleep eluded him. The memory of Farquharson jabbed at him like a sharp stick, taunting him with the terrible deeds from their shared past. Deeds that had stolen Lucien’s peace, destroyed the man he used to be, and made him the cold hard cynic he was now. The mean fire had long since burned out; grey raked ashes lay in a cold pile. Lucien huddled beneath the layers of his coat and the blanket, and tried to breathe warmth into his fingers. He pushed the thoughts far from his mind, struggled to escape from their oppression. Another sleepless night stretched ahead. He should be used to it by now. Then he heard it: the small movement from the bed; the change from her soft even breaths to staccato gasps; a mumbled cry; the twisting of her body beneath the sheets.

He trod quietly across the wooden flooring and leaned towards the bed.

‘No, Lord Farquharson …’ A whisper of torment that wrenched at his heart.

Lucien’s teeth clenched tighter. Last night had not been in isolation then. Madeline too knew what it was to suffer the terror of the night demons. There was an irony in the fact that the same man lay at the root of both their nightmares. He reached a hand out towards her, touched it gently against her face. The skin was wet beneath his fingers. Sobs racked her body. He could feel her fear, understand her terror. ‘Madeline,’ he whispered, trying to pull her from its grasp.

‘No!’ she sobbed louder.

His mouth tickled against her ear. ‘Madeline, wake up. It’s a nightmare. You’re safe.’

‘Lucien?’

He stroked her hair and wiped the dampness from her cheek. ‘You’re safe,’ he whispered again and again, lying his length on top of the covers, pulling her into his arms.

Gradually he felt the tautness of her body relax as she snuggled into him. Her breathing slowed, the frenzied beat of her heart steadied against his chest. He inhaled the scent of her, revelled in the feel of her softness, of her trust, and knew that he didn’t deserve it. He swallowed down temptation and with steadfast resolve gently began to ease a space between them. He had just managed to roll away when he felt the sudden grip of her hand around the flat of his stomach.

‘Please stay,’ she whispered into the darkness.

And Lucien knew that he was lost. He could no sooner ignore the plea in her voice than he could cut off his own arm. She was afraid. She needed him, he told himself, and ignored the stubborn little voice deep down inside that told him that he needed her, too.

‘Come beneath the covers.’

‘Madeline.’ There was an agony of denial in his whisper as he gently shook his head.

‘I’m so cold.’

‘Oh, God,’ Lucien ground out and promptly climbed beneath the covers of the bed.

She didn’t feel cold. In fact, Lucien would have sworn that she was positively warm. He lay motionless by her side, trying not to feel the slight body that rose and fell against him. She snuggled in closer and wrapped her arm around him. Lucien closed his eyes and enjoyed the soft gentleness of his wife, basking in her smell and her warmth. Slowly, he floated on a feather cushion of bliss into the black comfort of sleep.

Madeline felt the chill in her husband’s body and opened herself against him, sharing her warmth. Her hand slid over the soft lawn of his shirt, resting against the strong muscle beneath. She noticed how strange a man’s body felt in comparison with her own—all taut hardness, large, long and lean, with such a suppressed strength that her eyes flickered open, straining through the darkness to see him. He lay rigid as a flagpole, completely immobile, as if he exerted some kind of tense control over his muscles and limbs, almost fighting sleep. It appeared that Lucien Tregellas was not a man who allowed his guard to slip. He might feign an easiness of style, as if he did not care what happened around him, but it seemed to Madeline that there was something dark and watchful about her husband. What was it that he guarded so carefully against? The only time she had seen the guard drop was yesterday in the travelling coach when he had fallen asleep. Peace had touched his face then. There was nothing of peace in the large body now lying beside her own.

She lay her palm flat against his ribs and snuggled in close so as to feel the beating of his heart. She breathed in the scent of him—a heady mix of bergamot and the underlying smell that was uniquely Lucien. Cyril Farquharson and the stuff of Madeline’s nightmare drifted far away. All she knew, all she felt, was the presence of the man lying next to her, filling her nostrils, beneath the tips of her fingers, against her breast and waist and thighs. Warming. Strong. Sure. No matter that theirs was a marriage of convenience, a marriage in name only—nothing had ever felt so right as the man that she called husband. She closed her eyes against him, felt the tight muscles beneath her fingers relax. His breathing eased, letting go, the guard slipping slowly and steadily, until she knew that he slept. She smiled a little smile of contentment into his chest, placed a kiss through the lawn of his shirt, and gave herself up to follow the same path.

Lucien awoke with an unusual sense of calm contentment. He lay quite still, trying to capture the essence of the fragile moment, reticent to lose it. The first strains of daylight filtered through the thin curtains stretched across the window. Lucien opened one bleary eye and reality jolted back into place. As the warm body beside him nestled in closer, he realised the exact nature of his predicament. A woman’s soft body was curved into his, like a small spoon lying atop another. Her feet touched against his leg, her back fitted snug all the way up from his abdomen to his chest. Not only did he find that his arm was wrapped possessively around her, but his hand was resting against the small mound of her breast. As if that were not bad enough, her buttocks were pressed directly against his groin. Worst of all, Lucien was in a state of blatant arousal. The breath froze in his throat.

Madeline gave a little sigh and wriggled her hips closer into him.

Lucien captured the groan before it left his mouth, and gently removed his hand from the place it most certainly should not have been. Sweat beaded upon his brow. No woman had ever felt this good, like she belonged in his arms. He could have lain an eternity with Madeline thus and never wished to resume his life. Except that he must not. Never had he wanted to love a woman as much as he wanted to love Madeline right at that moment. Every inch of his body proclaimed its need. Lucien gritted his teeth. A fine protector he would be if he took advantage of her. Little better than Farquharson. Not like Farquharson, a little voice whispered. She’s your wife. You care for her. Lucien slammed the barrier down upon those thoughts. What he cared about was justice and retribution. He eased a distance between their bodies, but he had reckoned without Madeline.

From the depths of her dream Madeline felt him slipping away and sought to recapture the warm contentment that he had offered. She rolled over and thrust an arm over his retreating body.

Lucien stifled the gasp. Hell, but was a man ever so tempted? For a brief moment he allowed himself to relax back into her, feeling the steady beat of her heart against his, inhaling her scent, sweeping his hand lightly over her back to rest upon the rounded swell of her hips. ‘Madeline.’ Her name was a gentle sigh upon his lips. In the greyness of the dawn he studied her features: the long black lashes sweeping low over her eyes, the straightness of her little nose, the softness of her lips parted slightly in the relaxation of slumber. Lucien swallowed hard as his gaze lingered over her mouth. He experienced the urge to cover her lips with his; to kiss her long and deep and hard; to show her what a husband and his wife should be about. But he had promised both her and himself that he would not.

He heard again her question of that night that now seemed so long ago, although it was scarcely four nights since: What do you wish from me in return, my lord? And he remembered the proud, foolish answer he had given: Discretion … a marriage in name only … nothing need change. But as he lay there beside her, he knew that he had lied. Everything had changed. He knew very well what he wanted: his wife. Lucien’s jaw clenched harder. That wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal. He looked at her for a moment longer, then allowed himself one chaste kiss against her hair, her long glorious hair, all tousled from sleep. Quietly he slipped from the bed.

Madeline reached for the warm reassurance of her husband’s body and found only bare sheets. Her fingers pressed to the coolness of the empty linen. Gone. She sat up with a start, eyes squinting against the sunlight filtering through and around the limp square of material that passed for a curtain. His name shaped upon her lips, worry wrinkled at her nose.

‘Good morning, Madeline.’ He was lounging back as best he could in the small chair, watching her.

Surely she must still be dreaming? Madeline watched while his mouth stretched to a smile. A tingling warmth responded within her belly. Most definitely this could only be a dream. Part of the same nocturnal imaginings in which she had lain safe within Lucien’s strong arms all the night through, shared his warmth, and felt his hand upon her breast. Madeline blushed at the visions swimming through her mind, rubbed at her eyes and cast a rather suspicious look in his direction. ‘Lucien?’

‘I thought I might have to carry you sleeping out into the coach. You seemed most resistant to my efforts to wake you.’ He was fully dressed, his hair teased to some semblance of order; even the blue shadow of growth upon his chin had disappeared. Her gaze lingered over the strong lines of his jaw and the chiselled fullness of his lips.

Madeline’s blush deepened as she remembered exactly what she had been dreaming about. ‘I must have been very tired to sleep so long. I’m normally awake with the lark. I don’t usually lie abed.’

‘You appear to be mastering the art well,’ said her husband with a wry smile. ‘Did you sleep well?’

Madeline’s heart skipped a beat. Had last night been real? Or a wonderful dream that followed hard on the heels of a hellish nightmare? The touch of him, the smell of him, the chill in those long powerful limbs. No, she couldn’t have imagined that, could she? ‘Yes. After you … after the nightmare passed, I slept very well, thank you.’

The smile dropped and his voice gentled. ‘Do you dream of Farquharson every night?’

‘How did you know?’

‘You uttered his name aloud.’

They looked at one another. Warm honey brown and pale blue ice.

‘I did not mean to wake you,’ she said.

‘I was awake anyway. As you correctly observed, the chair does not make the most comfortable of sleeping places.’ He paused. ‘You have not answered my question.’

There was a difference about his face this morning. Nothing that she could define exactly, just something that wasn’t the same as yesterday. ‘Yes. He has haunted my dreams since I first met him. Even before … before he tried to …’ She let the sentence trail off unfinished. ‘Every night without fail, he’s there waiting in the darkness. I know it sounds foolish, but sometimes I’m afraid to fall asleep.’

Understanding flickered in Lucien’s eyes. ‘He would have to come through me to reach you, Madeline, and that will only happen over my dead body.’

It seemed that in the moment that he said it a cloud obliterated the sun, and a cold hand squeezed upon her heart. ‘Pray God that it never happens,’ she said.

‘It won’t,’ he said with absolute certainty. ‘I’ll have stopped him long before.’

‘We’ll be safe in Cornwall, though. He won’t follow us there, will he?’

Lucien did not answer her question, just deflected it and changed the subject. ‘Put Farquharson from your thoughts. The fresh water was delivered only a few minutes ago; it should still be warm.’ He gestured towards the pitcher. ‘I’ll go and order us breakfast. Will fifteen minutes suffice to have yourself ready?’

Madeline nodded, and watched the tall figure of her husband disappear through the doorway. So, even down in Cornwall, so far away from London, the threat of Cyril Farquharson would continue.

The hours passed in a blur. At least the weather held fine until the light began to drain from the day. Then a fine smirr of rain set up as the darkness closed, and they sought the sanctuary of the New London Inn in Exeter. It was the same pattern as the previous two nights. He had promised that they would reach Trethevyn by tomorrow. This would be their last night on the road, his last excuse to share her bedchamber. Lucien thrust the thought away and denied its truth. His presence was just a measure of protection. Or so he persuaded himself. If Lucien had learned anything in the years he’d spent waiting, it was to leave nothing to chance. The busy throng within a coaching inn provided opportunity for Farquharson, not safety from him.

Sharing a bed with Madeline had been an unforeseen complication. Lucien’s loins tightened with the memory. He tried to turn his mind to other matters, but memory persisted. No matter how damnably uncomfortable the chair, or the sweet allure of her voice, or, worse still, her soft welcoming arms … Lucien’s teeth ground firm. He’d be damned to the devil if he was stupid enough to make the same mistake twice. Take the chair, not the bed, he thought, and made his way up the scuffed wooden staircase of the New London Inn.

Surprisingly the room was not in darkness. The fire still blazed and a candle flickered by the side of the bed. The small room welcomed and warmed him. Still hanging grimly on to his determination, he made his way over to the chair and slipped out of his coat. Not once did he permit his gaze to wander in the direction of the bed and the woman that lay within it. He just kept his focus on the chair, that damned wooden chair, and started to undress.

‘Lucien,’ she said in a quiet voice.

He stilled, his boot dangling in his hand. Temptation beckoned. His eyes slid across to hers … and found that she was sitting up, watching him, her hands encircling the covers around her bent legs, her chin resting atop her blanketed knees. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked, hoping that she would not notice the huskiness in his voice.

‘I wondered if you might … if you would …’ The candlelight showed the rosy stain that scalded her cheeks.

Oh, Lord! Lucien knew what it was that his wife was about to ask.

‘I thought perhaps if you were here that … that Farquharson … that the nightmares might not come …’ She glanced away, her face aflame, her manner stilted.

Lucien felt her awkwardness as keenly as if it were his own. How much had it cost her to make such a request? Hell, but she had no idea of the effect that she had upon him. She was an innocent. The boot slipped from Lucien’s fingers. He raked a hand roughly through his hair, oblivious to the wild ruffle of dark feathers that fanned in its wake. ‘Madeline,’ he said gruffly, ‘you don’t know what it is that you ask.’

She gestured towards the empty half of the bed. ‘It seems silly that you should be cold and uncomfortable on a hard rickety chair when there is plenty room for both of us in this bed.’

Better that than risk the temptation that lay in what she was so innocently offering. Lucien opened his mouth to deny it.

‘I do trust you, Lucien.’

She trusted him, but the question was—did he trust himself? The warmth of her sweet gaze razed his refusal before it had formed.

‘Madeline,’ he tried again, raking his hair worse than ever.

She smiled, and pulled the bedcovers open on the empty side of the bed, his side of the bed. ‘And it’s not as if my reputation can be ruined by our sleeping in the same bed. We are at least married.’ She snuggled down under the covers and waited expectantly.

Lucien knew that he was lost. Could not refuse her. Swore to himself that he would not touch her. Still wearing his shirt and pantaloons, he climbed in beside her.

Madeline felt the mattress dip beneath his weight. Safety and excitement in equal dose danced their way through her veins. She knew that she should not have asked. Perhaps he thought her wanton to have done so. But the need for him to be close was greater than the shame in asking. And so she had spoken the words that Madeline Langley had never thought to utter and asked a man to come into her bed. They lay stiffly side by side. Each on their backs, careful not to look at the other, determined that no part of them should actually touch. His warmth traversed the space between them, so that the full stretch of the left-hand side of her body tingled from his heat. She wondered that he could have brought himself to marry a woman that he found so … lacking. For all that she was neither his social nor financial equal, he did not despise her, for surely something of that would have communicated itself in his manner? When he touched her she felt warm, happy, breathless with anticipation. Clearly Lucien did not feel the same. He did not want to touch her. The gap between them widened. That was when a glimmer of understanding dawned upon Madeline.