Читать книгу The Complete Regency Bestsellers And One Winters Collection - Rebecca Winters - Страница 76

Chapter Five

Maureen confronted her the morning after she had gone to the St Auburn town house, deep marks of worry across her brow and dark eyes fixed upon her lips.

‘You were so late home last night. I can hardly recognise who you have become, Cassie, and I do not think you know it yourself, either.’

Her rebuke stung. ‘This is not an easy task, Reena. There are so many who need—’

‘To be saved?’ A question. ‘And what will be your salvation when you are caught in the lad’s clothes far from home and I cannot find you?’

High emotion changed a careful diction so that the words slurred together unfinished and disjointed. Realising this, Maureen reined her anger in, the hands she used so much in communication hard up against her ears, pressing, and the guilt that had been Cassandra’s constant companion since the accident bloomed.

‘I cannot properly hear what people say any more, Cassie. Mama was certain that I would grow out of my affliction, but it is worsening.’

‘If Mama was still here she would know what to do, but she isn’t. She’s gone,’ Cassandra shouted back, for after an evening sparring with Nathaniel Lindsay she was heedless. ‘It was all my fault that she died. I was the one who did that.’

They had seldom spoken of the day of the accident, the memory too painful for them both. Their beautiful and clever mama falling down upon the floor, her eyes wide open with surprise and pain and then nothing. Save Reena with her hands on her ears in exactly the same way she held them now, her face creased with disbelief.

The laughter was unexpected.

‘Mama’s science is what killed her, Cassie. Mama and her foolish insistence on having us help her.’

The shock of the words kept Cassandra still.

‘Alysa only thought about her experiments. Don’t you remember that? She lived in her laboratory. Her scientific discoveries were her babies so much more than we ever could be and the thought of saving the world soul by soul through uncovering unseen sicknesses was what drove her. If she had not been killed in that particular accident, then there would have been another.’

Such revelations amazed Cassie. ‘You never told me this.’

‘I tried to because I could see that you thought it was your fault, but you loved her too much to listen and then you got sick.’

Heartsick. Body-sick. Soul-sick.

Leached of life by guilt and then by shame.

‘I should be rejoicing in my affliction in any case and not decrying it. I would have never met Kenyon otherwise for I would have heard his horse behind me and got off the path. What a loss that would have been.’

The day just kept getting stranger.

‘Kenyon Riley?’

‘Of course. I am getting older, old enough to imagine I should never have the chance of a family. I love him and he has asked me to marry him.’

Pieces of a puzzle clicked into place. Kenyon’s presence at the school, his interest in everything that they did, his generosity and his kindness.

‘You have been distracted lately, Cassie. I wanted to tell you, but you were never here. You were always dressed in your boy’s clothes and out in the night, helping others.’

Mama. Maureen. Kenyon.

My God, she had missed all the signs of change.

‘There is a problem, however, and I think it is only fair that you hear of it from me. There are whispers in places that say you were the woman in Lord Lindsay’s bed in that whorehouse in Whitechapel, and they are gaining in traction. Kenyon has tried to douse the rumour, but it seems you were seen.’

Maureen’s careful diction made the accusations sound so much worse, each rounded word ringing out the ruin.

‘Tell me it is not true, Cassie, and we can refute it together. I can say you were here with me and that they were mistaken...’ Her voice petered off as Cassandra shook her head and anger lit her dark eyes.

‘He forced you?’

‘No.’

‘You wanted him?’

‘No.’

‘Then why?’

Because I was abused once by monsters who held no mind for a young, thin, sick and frightened girl. Because Nathanael Colbert saved me from hell and we were married under other names in a town I can barely remember. Because I betrayed others to save his life. Because I have killed men by my hand and by my words and he hates me for it all.

That is what she could have said, might have even tried to had her brother not have chosen that very second to interrupt them and come tumbling into the room with a parrot upon his shoulder.

‘I was given this by a sailor in the park who had come from India and wanted to go back again without the bother of a bird. Sixpence, he charged me, and he said I was to call him “Mine”.’

At the sound of his name the bird lunged from his perch on Rodney’s arm up on to the gold clip in Maureen’s hair, pecking at the glitter to create havoc. And Cassie knew without a single doubt that any moment of truth was well and truly lost.

‘Mine. Mine. Mine’, she heard them both calling as she slipped through the doorway and left.

* * *

Cassandra lay in bed that night and thought of all that Maureen had said. If the gossip about her were to become widespread, what would happen? Nathaniel Lindsay would hardly be stepping forward with an offer of his hand. Again.

Wonderful and terrible.

The day had been that. Maureen’s good news balanced against her bad. The guilt felt about her mother’s death lost into the wonder of Reena meeting Kenyon Riley and all because she did not hear the hoofbeats of his horse as they came from behind her. Despite everything else, Cassie smiled and rubbed at the china shard Nathanael had threaded for her in the tiny village of Saint Estelle.

They had come down into the settlement late in the afternoon, the thin sunlight slanting on to their faces as they walked in silence after their night at the pools. Cassandra had not dared to break with words the magic that danced about every part of her body.

This was what she had heard of in the ballads and in the books. This crawling, sensuous, languid warmth that sifted through everything and left her different.

She wished they might find a room somewhere, alone, and begin all over again. The punching throb of need made her groan, and he turned.

‘Are you hurt?’

The redness began at her breast and crept up on to her cheeks, a wave of heat similar to that she had felt last night. Unstoppable. She was like a woman in a story book, a woman with little will of her own and a singular wish for the feelings expressed in the works of the Romantic poets Celeste and she had read under the candlelight.

Thrilling.

Please.

The word coiled inside her like a snake waiting to strike.

Please. Please. Please.

She saw the moment he understood what it was she hid, blue darkening across silver in a will all of its own.

Lust it might be for him, but for her love held on at the edges, grasping tentatively. The feel of the ring against her skin deepened it, a circle that held them together, caught in the company of each other, pledged to God.

And by flesh now, the feel of him within her, the building joy of need, the hours of play and delight so different from anything she had known at Nay.

She shook away the darkness. No. She would not think of that again.

‘I will find us a room.’ His voice sounded strained and unnatural.

* * *

This time the feeling was different. This time they circled each other fully dressed in a chamber that was...comfortable. Now instead of a strange world far from the one they knew, a certain familiarity crept in. The crystal of the glasses. The bed with its feather quilts. A window where the blinds had been drawn across the remains of the day; curtains of floral damask much like the ones hanging in the library room at home. Bread and wine sat upon a gilded tray on the table.

The consequences of choices already made settled in. One day she would be back in London and this would all be a memory.

She began to unbutton her shirt, but he stopped her.

‘We will eat first.’

First.

She shook her head. She was not hungry for food or wine. She did not want to wait until they had supped and spoken, all the normal things that happened in a relationship. This was not normal, the aching lust that coursed through her and made her want to lunge at him and take everything that his body could offer hers. She wanted him inside, moving; she wanted to feel all those things she had last night and this morning when her mind for once had flown away from thought and into a place that was only feeling.

No past or future, only now.

‘We have time to—’

She stopped him. With her fingers across his lips. Pressed hard.

‘No.’ Her other hand unbuttoned his shirt and came inside, the warmth beguiling. Yesterday he had flicked her nipples with his forefinger and she had liked it. Today she did the same to him, measuring his heartbeat as it quickened.

‘Tonight is by my bidding.’

The slate-grey darkened, the last light from a dying sun slanting through a gap in the curtains and reaching the skin on his chest where she had peeled away clothing.

‘Like the daughters of Achelous?’

‘The sirens?’ She laughed. ‘Dangerous and beautiful?’ He knew the old legends of Greece and the names of the gods. For a second she wondered just exactly who he was, this man dressed in clothes that had seen better days, but when she kneeled to undo his trousers she forgot about such intrigue entirely.

He was her husband and he was ready for her, sprung hard against lust, nothing hidden. A gift offered without payment or coercion. Or hurt. Legal. Sanctioned. Authorised.

She laid her fingers around his shaft and brought it to her tongue, licking the ridges and the smoothness, finding the essence; and when he swore roundly she brought him in deeper.

* * *

Hell, Nathaniel thought, his world spinning in a way it never had before, the sweet feel of yearning drumming in his ears. Wild curls hid Sandrine from him, trails in gold and red, her slender shoulders bent in concentration to all that she gave. He knew she wanted control, but in another moment his restraint would break and he had to give her back more than just his own relief.

Guiding her face away from swollen flesh, he lifted her chin and she stood. He had no clothes on and she was fully dressed, small webs of repaired fabric standing out against the light. Placing his mouth across hers, he slanted the kiss, his fingers running across the fine lines of her throat and bringing her closer.

‘Love me, Sandrine.’ Whispered. Gentle. Allowing more than simple lust.

‘I do.’

She was so light as he lifted her, a shadow of a woman, but tall with it. He brought her to the bed and sat her down, and when her hands went to the buttons at her shirt he stopped her.

‘My turn.’

She did not argue.

Five buttons and one missing. Beneath the cotton was sheer lawn and lace, repaired like the rest of her clothes, but of a quality that told him of a life led before. The pad of his finger lingered on the stitching, complex, intricate, the sort of thing his mother might have worn had she lived.

The straps were thin and of satin and he slid them across her shoulders so that the chemise drooped and her breasts were there, peaked and perfect. He cupped his hand around one feeling its form, admiring the curve of skin and the unexpected smattering of freckles.

The tip-tilt of her nose as she looked at him made him smile. A girl who was the most beautiful woman in the world. The narrowness of her waist, the slender length of her arms, the elegance of neck.

This was Sandrine.

A goddess lost into the wilderness and now refound.

He traced his initials into the cream of her skin, NL, and she looked up in puzzlement.

‘Once I was someone else,’ he explained.

‘And I was, too,’ she responded, the rightness of their coupling underwritten by truth. ‘But now all I want to be is loved well.’

He lifted her onto his knees, slipping off her trousers and socks and boots so that she sat naked and waiting. He liked how she did not hold her legs together tightly or stiffen as his fingers came between them, exploring.

‘Is this well enough?’ he asked as he found the core of her in the hard nub of need. ‘Is this what you want?’ he added as he began to move faster and faster, the rhythm changing just as he thought she was about to come apart.

Wet for him and swollen. He could feel the throb inside and the heat.

And when she nodded he simply placed her upon his cock and drove in, the finesse transformed to something much stronger and more basic. It was not knowledge that brought them together now, but an ancient magic with no rational thought, and he cried out as her body clenched about his, taking all that he offered and more.

He took her again in the night and once in the morning when the first rays of sunshine woke them. He had not slept with a woman for so many hours in his life, his more normal caution and vigilance taking him from a bed well before they asked for more than he might want to give. But with Sandrine they spooned together in the cold and lonely hours and when they awoke their bodies called, the quick burst of need and the slow sating after relief.

Once on waking he found her looking at him, as though she wanted to remember every piece of who he was.

‘Stay with me for ever.’ The words were out before he knew them to be and she placed his hand upon her heart in answer.

‘Here. You will always be here.’

‘Do you promise?’

Nodding, she simply rolled over on top of him and all that had been magical before began again.

* * *

Cassandra awoke with tears running down her cheeks and the cold London morning bearing down. No longer in France. No longer in the place of dreams and promises, the steam bath above Bagnères-de-Bigorre and the curtained room in Saint Estelle.

Avalon. The vaulted ceilings and the shining marbled Gothic arches.

A noise made her turn, and James was at her doorway, a teddy bear held in one hand so that his furry legs dragged along the floor.

‘Mummy.’

‘I am here, darling.’ She pulled back the sheet and waited until he came inside, tucking the warmth about him when he was settled. His small roundness pressed into her, the smell of slumber upon him.

‘I dreamed we were in France.’ His pale grey eyes watched her, dark hair standing on end from sleep.

‘Once we were, my love. Once it was just you and I there and I knew from the very second I saw you that I should love you for ever.’

He giggled. ‘You always say that.’

‘And I always mean it.’

‘Nigel said his daddy still lives in France. But I said mine was dead.’

The worm of dread turned. ‘Well, you have so many others who love you, sweetheart. Mummy. Maureen. Anne. Granddad. Rodney. The cook. Nigel’s mummy.’

‘But a daddy is special. Nigel said that they were.’

Lord Nathaniel Lindsay. More than special. She would have to tell him, she knew that she would, but not yet. Not while Jamie was still hers to love and hold like this, the secrets of the past hidden in a corner where they were unable to escape and ruin everything.

And if Nathaniel took their son away...?

She shook her head and, drawing her fingers up into the shape of a spider, began to recite a children’s ditty, liking the laughter that followed.