He was so earnest. His gaze never wavered.
“Part of me wishes I could believe you.” The admission fled her before she could think better of it. “But all those rumors, Jack…your time on the Continent. Even had I not seen Lady Billingsley in your bed…”
What was she saying? That she wanted to believe him? Did she?
Dear God. Did she still love him? No. She could not. It was not possible. She refused to believe herself so weak, so foolish, so witless.
“You can believe me, Nellie,” he insisted.
“No!” The vehemence of her denial rang out, bouncing off the grassy hill behind them and echoing over the lake.
She tore herself from his grasp and whirled away, needing to put some distance between them. Her cry and the haste of her movements spooked the ducks, who flew back to the safety of the glittering water. His footfalls followed her, crunching on the gravel walk. She moved faster, desperation coursing through her.
Her foot suddenly caught in the hem of her gown, and she could not save herself. She tripped, flying to her knees, her hands catching the brunt of her fall. Pain radiated from her palms and knees.
“Devil take it, woman.” He was there, of course, his hands on her elbows, helping her to stand. Frowning down at her. “Are you hell-bent upon doing yourself harm?”
“I was trying to get away from you, which seems a Sisyphean fate,” she snapped, irritated with herself and her lack of grace as much as she was angry with him for making her feel things she had no wish to feel. “I have been telling you for days to go away and leave me alone. Why do you not do it, Needham?”
He turned her hands over, inspecting the damage she had done to her palms. The sharp gravel had torn open her skin. He brushed gently at the dirt sticking to her wounded flesh. “Because you are my wife, damn it. And you are clearly in need of a keeper. Before the week is out, you shall be little more than one big bandage.”
She could not stifle the helpless laughter rising in her throat. It escaped before she could tamp it down. He was not wrong—she had suffered rather a great deal of mishaps in the wake of his return.
“There it is,” he said softly.
Her gaze jerked to his. He watched her with a strange, rapt expression. “There what is?”
“Your laugh.” He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I missed it.”
He was so beautiful when he smiled. His words sent a fresh pang to her heart.
She did her best to ignore it. “I could argue that all the injuries which have befallen me have been because of you.”
His smile faded. “Hmm. Or because of your stubbornness. If you had listened to me about waiting for the carriage, you would not have suffered blisters. If you had worn your hat, the sun would not have burned your pretty skin. And if you had not been running from me just now, you would not have fallen.”
Once more, he was not wrong, drat him.
She tugged her hands from his grasp. “How like you to paint yourself a hero.”
“When you think upon it, I am a hero.” His tone went wry. “After all, I did save you from breaking your neck when you were dancing upon the dining room table.”
Blast the man. “I would have landed on my feet.”
“Undoubtedly.” He raised a brow, his expression one of blatant disbelief.
“I would have,” she insisted.
“How are your knees?” he asked instead of arguing with her.
They hurt. Likely, she had skinned them. “Perfectly well,” she said brightly.
He gave her another knowing look and dropped to his haunches. He caught her hem and raised it.
“Jack!” she protested, his earlier admission he had seen her here from the windows reminding her that anyone could be watching them now. “Do not lift my skirts.”
“I am checking on your knees, not planning to ravish you.” His touch drifted lightly over her smarting knees as he ignored her. “Besides, I have been beneath your skirts many times in the past.”
The rogue.
She shifted away from him. “I do not need you to check on my knees. They shall be fine.”
“Your stockings are ruined,” he reported, ignoring her. “There is that lovely little mole I have always adored on your right knee, perfectly unscathed. I do not believe you have any cuts. Only bruising.”
“Small mercies,” she muttered, twitching her skirts back into place as he stood, looming over her. Her cheeks were hot, and it had nothing to do with the warmth of the summer sun overhead.
“Come,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “We need to clean the scrapes on your hands.”
Why did he insist upon being so kind? So concerned about her? It made the anger she had been carrying for him these last three years more difficult to cling to. Undoubtedly, that was part of his plan.
“I will see to them myself.”
He said nothing, simply stood there, his hand extended, watching her calmly.
With a sigh, she relented, placing her hand in his. “You will likely dog me every step of the way.”
His fingers tangled lightly in hers, avoiding her injured palm. “You cannot shake me, Nellie. Surrender.”
“Never,” she vowed.
But some part of her could not help but to wonder if her resistance to him was not fading.
Jack had forgotten what an excellent horsewoman Nell was.
As he rode alongside her on the periphery of Needham Hall’s vast forest, he could not help but to admire her seat. It was miracle enough she had accepted his invitation to go riding, albeit with his reassurances he would do his utmost to behave himself. But the sight of her, too, was miraculous all on its own. The riding habit she had donned was scarlet. Her hat was jaunty, her golden curls trapped in a fat braid which ran down her back.
She looked like an invitation to sin, and he very much wanted to accept the offer.
Siege, he reminded himself once more. Slowly, surely, he would win this war between them. He merely needed to bide his time.
“Do you recall the last time we rode together?” he could not resist asking her.
She cast him a frown. “No.”
He was equally certain she did.
“It was here at Needham Hall,” he reminded her. “We raced, and you won. Afterward, we tethered the horses by the stream and I made you a coronet of forget-me-nots.”
The blue of the flowers had matched her eyes.
She had suspected him of allowing her to win, but he had not. In truth, her mount had outpaced his.
“I do not remember it,” she said coolly.
The expression on her lovely face said otherwise.
“Are your hands paining you?” he asked, changing the subject for the moment.
The Nell he knew would have been galloping across the field by now.
“I am not as reckless as I once was,” she said softly. “I took a fall from Thunder, and I was badly hurt.”
This was news to him.
“When?” he demanded. “Why was I not informed?”
“It was about two months after you left.” She kept her face trained forward, gaze fixed upon the copse of trees on the horizon. “I did not want you to know.”
“How badly were you injured?” he asked next, alarm flaring inside him.
“A broken wrist and a badly bruised back.” She cast him a quick look. “It was not as serious as it could have been. I was riding him too fast, and I had been drinking wine. The fault was mine.”
She had been drinking. Riding recklessly. She had not said it, but they both knew the reason why. Him.
He ground his molars. “Damn it, I would have returned. I would have wanted to know. You had no right to keep it from me.”
“I feared that if I wrote to you with what had happened, you would return.” Another glance in his direction, this one quite quelling. “And I wanted you to stay gone.”
Her words lodged their barbs firmly in his heart. She had preferred to suffer on her own rather than see him retu
rn. “You should not have mounted a horse in your cups, Nellie. You know better.”
“I did.” She was once again facing forward, her profile serene. “But I did not care. For a long time, I did not care about anyone or anything. Most especially not myself. But I did care for Thunder, and it was my fear I would injure him with my foolishness.”
“When I reached Paris, I drank enough wine to kill a man,” he told her. “I spent an entire day casting up my accounts and wishing myself to perdition.”
She slanted him a look. “I spent a great deal of time wishing you to perdition as well.”
And he had almost found himself there.
“I wished you there too,” he confessed. “I devoted a great deal of time to cursing the day I married you. To hating myself for loving you so much.”
Her brow furrowed. “You were angry with me? Forgive me for failing to see why.”
“I was furious with you.” His hands tightened on the reins as remembrance washed over him. “Your lack of faith in me was devastating then. It still is. But I have also had three years to ponder everything that happened and to realize I would have believed the same of you, had I walked in upon a similar scene.”
Her chin tipped up, her stare returning to a point somewhere beyond them. “I never had another man in my bed, Jack.”
“Then,” he agreed, hating the surge of jealousy that accompanied the reminder.
“Ever,” she said.
It was his turn to frown. “I distinctly recall you blithely informing you had fucked half of London in my absence.”
“It was a lie,” she admitted. “I have not welcomed anyone to my bed.”
He had already told himself what she had done during their time apart did not matter. Still, he could not deny she had shocked him.
“What of Sidmouth?”
“Not yet.” Her voice was cold. “I decided when next I welcomed a man to my bed, he would be my new husband. I had no wish for an endless string of lovers. My heart was far too bruised and battered for that.”
She had not bedded the insufferable, pallid viscount.
“How long did he wait until I had gone to go sniffing after your skirts?” he asked grimly, knowing he should not issue the question. Knowing he did not want to hear the answer.
Sidmouth had been in love with Nell years ago, when Jack had been courting her. But everyone was in love with Nell. She was captivating. Vivacious. Beautiful. Everything a woman ought to be.
“Tom was not sniffing.” Her tone was nettled. Defensive. “You make him sound as if he is a hound.”
“He is a hound,” he clipped. “I ought to break his nose all over again.”
“He has been a perfect gentleman,” she defended.
He clenched his jaw with so much force, his teeth ached. “Do not dare to sing his praises to me, madam. You are a married woman.”
“A married woman intent upon divorcing her unwanted husband so she might marry another.” Her voice was tart, her spine rigid.
That quickly, all hope and promise alive within him dissipated.
Anger returned, dark and bitter. Threatening to consume.
“Pray tell me why you are so quick to see the best in another man when you were so hasty to think the worst of me,” he bit out.
She glanced back at him. “Because I saw you, Jack.”
Bloody, fucking hell.
“You saw a soused woman who mistakenly found herself in the wrong bed at a house party. It was not the first time it ever happened, and neither, I imagine, shall it be the last. House parties are notorious for such goings on, and Lady Billingsley was on her way to Sandhurst’s chamber when she mistakenly found mine.” He forced himself to take a deep breath, tamping down the frustration and the hurt he had been doing his damnedest to keep at bay.
“I could have understood such a circumstance had you not been kissing her, and had she not had her hand beneath the bedclothes,” Nell snapped.
“I wish to God I never touched a drop of spirits that night,” he told her tightly. “However, I cannot alter the past. I can only alter the future.”
And his future had her in it.
Or he had no future at all.
“I do not know why I agreed to come riding with you.” She shook her head. “This discussion is going nowhere.”
“Because you refuse to allow it to go anywhere,” he pointed out.
“Tom has never betrayed me,” she said quietly. “You have. For some time now, he has been wonderfully patient, waiting for me to be certain he was the one I wanted. For all this time, I have allowed him nothing more than kisses, and he has been contented. He has been respectful and sweet and kind.”
She had kissed Sidmouth?
“I will tear him limb from limb,” he vowed.
“No more violence, Jack.”
“Then call off your hound,” he shot back.
A violent crack of thunder burst overhead, interrupting their heated exchange. Just what they needed: a storm. He glanced over his shoulder and made two instant realizations. The first was that the sky behind them was an ominous dark gray. The second was that the storm was going to overtake them before they could return to Needham Hall.
“The sky looks furious,” Nell observed, soothing her mount with a gloved hand.
They had been so caught up in each other and the awful memories of the past that they had not realized the sky was about to unleash a torrent upon them. Lightning arced between a pair of dark clouds. Another roll of thunder crashed.
“We are too far from Needham Hall to make it back before the storm is upon us,” he told her. “We have no choice but to seek shelter now and wait until it passes through.”
“No,” she denied instantly, her eyes wide upon his. “The only place we could seek shelter this far from the main house is…”
“The folly,” he finished for her.
“Not there,” she said. “Anywhere but there.”
He knew the reason for her protest. The folly had been built in the last century by the seventh Marquess of Needham. It was meant to look like the ruins of a medieval castle, but it was far enough from the main house that it also possessed a small stable. It was a place they had gone often when they were in residence. They would ride and slip into the charmed little world of the folly to make love.
Thunder boomed once more, and another bolt of lightning lit the sky. Nell’s horse moved skittishly. A warm wind whipped up, obviously the vanguard of the fury. The storm was coming. Fast.
“I am afraid we have no choice, Nellie. If we attempt to make it back to Needham Hall now, we only run the risk of putting ourselves in danger of getting struck by lightning.”
She patted her gelding’s neck, looking troubled. “Very well. If there is no other option save that, I suppose we have no choice.”
Thunder cracked again.
“Follow me,” he told her, spurring his mount in the direction of the folly. “We have not any time to waste.”
Chapter Nine
Nell’s riding habit was sodden.
They had not made it to the folly before the skies had opened, venting their fury. She paced the stone floors now, awaiting Jack’s return. By the time they had reached safety, they had both been drenched, and the lightning had seemingly been directly upon them. He had helped her to dismount and had ordered her inside the folly while he tended to their mounts, tethering them within the old stables.
The folly was dark, its few windows emitting precious little light on account of the darkened skies beyond. Rain lashed the building, and another round of thunder rolled overhead. A brilliant flash told her more lightning had followed the thunder. Jack was still out there, tending the horses.
The wind whipped up, battering the stone walls of the old folly, whistling. Trees swayed, their branches bending beneath the onslaught. What if something had happened to him?
She wrung her hands as she paced the length of the room once more. The scent was familiar—damp and earthy, with a hint of mustines
s. Once, this had been one of her favorite places on the property. How many times had she and Jack made love here? Little wonder the walls were not haunted by the echoes of their old laughter, the ghosts of their former joy.
Thunder crashed.
Surely enough time had passed for him to see to the horses? Her fear rising, she moved to the door, throwing it open. A wall of water pelted her. And then there he was, running toward her through the melee of the storm.
“Jack?” she cried out.
“Stay where you are!” he called over the lashing of the wind and rain as he held his hat in place and squinted against the water assailing him.
But she did not listen. She rushed toward him, her terror that something had befallen him mingling with her relief that he was there, tangible, real, fine. She caught him in her arms, and together, they stumbled over the threshold of the folly, Jack slamming and bolting the door at their backs.
She held him to her tightly, their hearts pounding as one. “Jack.”
“I told you to stay inside where it was safe,” he said hoarsely, his hands moving up and down her back in slow, gentle caresses. “Damn it, woman.”
“I was afraid something had happened to you,” she admitted, her voice trembling.
She tilted her head back, staring through the gloom up at him.
“You would have had your wish.” His voice was grim. “You would have been rid of me forever.”
“No,” she whispered, because something about the savagery of the sudden storm had made her realize that was the last thing she wanted.
A life without Jack?
All the emotions she had done her utmost to banish and hide away forever these past three years—these past few days—descended upon her. Walloped her with the force of the storm’s raging winds. Longing coursed over her, so fierce and unexpected, she could not tamp it down.
She caught Jack’s face in her hands. His beard was wet as his skin. They were both sodden. But he was warm and familiar. She traced his cheekbones with her thumbs. They stared at each other in silent understanding. The passion that had always been between them since they had first met took hold, simmering beneath the heaviness of the moment.
Her Missing Marquess Page 10
