He was going to come.
With sheer force of will, he withdrew from her at the last second, gripping his shaft tight as he spent all over her cunny. He painted her pretty pink folds with his seed, marking her as his. It was primitive, but he had another reason for not releasing his seed within her.
“Mine,” he bit out, claiming his victory as he had claimed her. “Always mine.”
And then he rolled to his back alongside her, sated and boneless. His heart pounded in his chest, and he did not recall when he had ever come so hard in his life. Nell’s breaths were every bit as rapid and ragged as his. She too lay still, as if she could not move.
For a few, unguarded moments, they were completely at one, and he was utterly at peace, fooling himself into believing this pax between them could last forever. That surely this bout of lovemaking, so powerful and passionate, had changed her mind for good. That surely she could never want to go to another man after what they had just experienced together.
“You did not finish inside me,” she said suddenly, breaking the silence at last.
And just like that, reality returned to him.
“No,” he agreed, wishing he would not have to say more, hoping she would not make him acknowledge the possibility of his impending defeat.
“Before, when we first married, you did not either,” Nell persisted, turning her face toward him, her gaze questioning. “Because we were not ready to have a child. Yet, the other times we made love since your return, you did.”
“I lost control,” he admitted. “I had been so long without you that I…could not control myself.”
“You controlled yourself this time. Why?”
She was going to make him say it.
He sighed. “Because I will not entrap you with a baby. I would sooner grant you the divorce than to spend the rest of my life knowing you remained tied to me for the sake of a child.”
He had too much pride for that, but he also loved Nell far too much for that. He wanted, more than anything, her happiness. If it was not with him, the choice would be hers and hers alone. He was doing everything in his power to change her mind.
“That is…gentlemanly of you,” she said haltingly.
He wished he could read her countenance. Her face, ordinarily so expressive and easy for him to translate, was carefully blank.
“You sound surprised,” he observed, his tone as grim and bleak as he felt within. “I have told you before, I am not the beast you think me, Nellie. I love you. I loved you three years ago, and I love you today. That has not changed, nor will it ever. But I will not hold you to this marriage if you cannot love me back.”
“I do not know if I can, Jack.”
Her soft confession took him aback. It was a greater concession than he had expected from her, given the manner in which she continued to push him away.
“Your uncertainty gives me hope.” He could not resist touching her, reaching out to caress her silken cheek before trailing his touch down to settle over her wildly beating heart. “Perhaps you may find room here for me yet.”
Her lips pursed, and then she rolled away from him, presenting him with her back. “You should go, Jack. I suspect we are quite tardy for breakfast by now, and I will be needing to perform some ablutions and ring for my lady’s maid.”
She was dismissing him.
He stared in disbelief as she rose, presenting him with a mouthwatering view of her curved derriere. Her long, golden curls swung as her hips swayed. As irritated as he was with her for her subsequent withdrawal once more, he could not help but to admire her as she bent to retrieve something from the floor.
“Let me stay,” he said. “Let me at least tend to you.”
He felt suddenly guilty for his display of possession. What had she reduced him to? Was he a barbarian?
Clearly, the answer to that question was a resounding yes, because the thought of his seed, warm and sticky between her thighs—the knowledge she must feel him there still—pleased him. It also made his cock twitch back to life.
She rose and turned, tossing a pile of garments at him. Trousers, shirt, waistcoat, smalls, etcetera. It landed on his erection in rather symbolic fashion.
“I have told you many times, Jack, I will take care of myself,” she said, her voice tart. “Now please, leave me so I can ready myself for the day.”
“Fair enough,” he grumbled, feeling as if he had just been caught cuckolding another man’s wife and he must now flee before the irate fellow caught him. But that was the devil of it, was it not? She was still his own bloody wife. “No more megrims, however. No more excuses. I mean to spend the next ten days wooing the hell out of you, woman.”
With that warning, he slid from her bed, clutching his discarded clothes.
Chapter Eighteen
When Jack was at his charming best, the effect was devastating.
And in the wake of their fervent lovemaking two days ago, he had put his most charming self to shame. He teased her until he made her laugh in spite of herself. He sang to her while she played the piano. He read her poetry in the library. He accompanied her for walks in the garden and picked her flowers.
Just yesterday morning, there had been a coronet of forget-me-nots awaiting her beside her plate when she descended to breakfast.
“To replace the one I inadvertently ruined,” he explained, giving her that half grin, which never failed to make her melt inside.
What had she done? She had carefully carried the coronet to her chamber at the conclusion of breakfast, and she had laid it out on her writing desk where it could dry. Because she wanted to preserve it. Because she was clearly a candidate for the lunatic asylum.
But she was not alone.
The servants were all in excellent spirits. Even Reeves, who had always, she secretly believed, disapproved of her, had smiled at her recently. On no less than two occasions. The housekeeper, Mrs. Barnes, could not seem to stop humming. Suddenly, Cook was preparing all her favorite desserts daily. Even the footmen and chamber maids seemed happier. Jack had raised everyone’s annual wages, she later discovered.
Then, there were the ducks, those little quacking traitors.
They had taken to him. One so much that it followed him about. The duck was a female, naturally.
Which was why it was no surprise when she set out at dawn for her customary feeding of the ducks and found Jack and that dratted duck of his already awaiting her on the gravel path.
He had his own basket of corn hanging from his arm, and he was dressed once more in summery linens that showed off his broad shoulders and long legs. The duck stood at his feet as if it were where she belonged, and offered Nell an admonishing quack when she rounded the bend, as if to say you are late.
She had slept later than was customary this morning, it was true. But his onslaught was wearing her down in more ways than one.
Jack offered her a bow worthy of a court presentation. “Elsa and I were beginning to wonder where you were this morning.”
She frowned at him, which was difficult indeed when Jack was grinning at her with his handsome face and there was a duck standing alongside him. A duck which he had named Elsa.
Nell drew nearer, and Elsa quacked with greater insistence, spreading her wings as if to menace a predator. That was the other thing about the blasted duck. Even Elsa had been won over by Jack’s indomitable charm. And the female duck did not particularly like Nell getting too close to her beloved.
“Settle down, you wretch,” Nell told the duck. “This will never end well for you, you know. He is a man, and you are a fowl. Why do you not go find one of your own kind?”
Elsa quacked and fluttered her wings again.
Jack laughed.
He had been doing that more recently, laughing. She loved the warmth and the depth of that sound. It was infectious, and she had missed it every bit as much as she had missed him. That was another bitter realization she had made in the last few days: she was enjoying his campaign of wooing the hell ou
t of her, as he had so impolitely phrased it.
“Elsa knows my heart only beats for one woman, do you not, Elsa?” he asked the duck before offering her a handful of corn.
She ate out of his palm.
Nell knew the feeling.
Eight days, she told herself inwardly. Eight more days until she was free to go. Surely she could withstand his charm and her body’s insatiable need for him and all the signs of the world around her which pointed to the indisputable fact that everyone loved Jack—including her. Including a cursed duck.
“I would not be surprised if I were to find that duck roosting in the library next,” she said curtly, vexed equally with both man and duck.
She had been feeding those dratted fowls whenever she was in residence these last three years. He had been exploring Paris and Egypt and Greece. He had been learning how to cure his sunburn with aloe and finding herbal tinctures to ease the aches of his blistered feet.
Yes, she had finished reading all of his books.
Each one had been dedicated to her.
And reading them had only heightened her inner misery.
His books were insightful and interesting and witty. He had been away, conquering the world and learning about himself whilst she had been precisely where he had left her: drinking too much, hosting wicked parties, and wishing she could have her old life back, the one before her husband had betrayed her.
She resented him for the disparity in their situations. Resented him for leaving her, for allowing Lady Billingsley into his bed, for winning over the servants and the duck, for picking her flowers, for making her body a slave to her desire for him…
For everything. She resented him for everything.
Elsa finished her snack, looked at Nell, and quacked as if in reproach.
But Nell refused to believe a duck could read minds.
“Elsa is telling you that she has no wish to roost in the library,” Jack said, cutting through Nell’s whirling thoughts. “She said she could never bear to leave the lake.”
She rolled her lips inward to keep from smiling at his foolishness. “You speak duck now?”
His levity fled. “It would seem the only language at which I excel.”
She held his stare, refusing to accept all the blame for their impasse. “I would not be so certain the problem is the language you speak. Your English and your flattery and charm are all more than proficient.”
“But not my groveling, it would seem,” he said, cocking his head at her. “How else can I say it, Nellie? How many other ways can I prove to you how bloody sorry I am and how much I love you?”
The dratted duck quacked. Twice.
“Go to the devil, you little featherbrain,” she told Elsa.
“Are you arguing with my duck?” he asked, the laughter back in his voice.
“I am arguing with that feathered menace who thinks she cannot leave your side,” she corrected, glaring at Elsa.
“Jealous, Nellie?” His grin was back, so deep it made grooves at the corners of his eyes.
That smile of his hit her like a wallop.
“She may have you all to herself in eight days,” she said with a sniff.
His smile died, and something inside her heart withered as well at the sight.
She was hurting him. And the more time they spent together, the more she hated his every somber look, the shadows in his eyes, the distance between them.
The more she never wanted to leave.
And that was the biggest problem of all.
“I still have eight days to change your mind,” he reminded her.
“You will not,” she promised him, passing him and the duck on the path, making certain to give Elsa a wide berth.
She would not put it past the duck to chase her.
“I would not be so certain if I were you,” Jack countered from behind her. “I do believe I am wearing on you, Nellie love.”
He was wearing on her more than he knew.
But she would never admit that to him. Because she knew him, and he would only exploit this newfound weakness until she could not bear to resist him. All whilst she knew, deep within her heart, that she did not dare trust him again.
She had trusted him and he had ruined that trust in most cruel fashion.
Only a fool would give him a second chance.
And she was beginning to fear she was very much a fool. That she was Jack’s fool.
“The rest of the ducks are hungry,” she called over her shoulder, ignoring his taunting words. “I am going to feed them their breakfast. You and your little friend can do as you like.”
Elsa quacked.
Nell did not think she imagined the sound was triumphant.
Nell was just ahead of Jack in the lake. Her back was to him, her hair unbound and floating around her like a silken serpent. Just as the night he had caught her swimming beneath the full roundness of the moon, she was naked. Swimming away from him. Always away.
Why did she never swim toward him? Why did she never come to him and take him in her arms? Why did she never breach this insurmountable distance keeping them apart?
He attempted to call out to her, but his voice did not seem to work. It rasped, swallowed by the vast echoes of the outdoors. She drifted farther from him and he paddled faster, desperate.
But as hard as he pushed and thrashed and fought through the water, his progress seemed to stagnate. He could not move. And Nell continued to paddle in the distance, her ivory arms arcing cleanly through the air, splashing in the water as she swam away.
He tried to call for her again and again, but his voice was eerily silent. He could not seem to yell her name. And Nell grew smaller and smaller, farther out of his reach. Desperation hit him. He tried to swim faster, but the water fought him. Something seemed to catch him from the depths of the water, dragging his head beneath.
He coughed, fought, sputtered for air.
He was drowning.
“Jack?”
A soft voice broke through his terror.
He woke with a clench in his chest, as if invisible hands sought to squeeze all the breath from his lungs. He was panting, his heart pounding. The night was dark around him, and it took a moment for his wits to gather where he was.
Home, at Needham Hall, in his chamber. It had all been a nightmare. Thank Christ.
But he was not alone. There was a presence alongside him, a hand gently stroking his arm in comfort. Nell, he realized.
“I heard you crying out,” she said softly. “Is something wrong?”
“A nightmare,” he said, feeling foolish. “Nothing more. Forgive me for waking you. I am fine.”
In truth, he was not fine. Not really. The dream had shaken him. The sense of having lost Nell was still real, looming. Because after a sennight in furious pursuit of his wife, Jack had to admit that he was failing abysmally in his crusade to win back her heart. Seven days.
That was all he had left.
And it may not be enough.
“You are trembling,” she observed, worry in her voice.
God, so he was. What a pathetic imbecile he was.
He raked a hand through his hair. “What is this? Concern for me?”
He had not meant to sound so bitter.
“Of course I am concerned.” She continued stroking his arm as though he were a feral animal in need of soothing lest he bite. “You gave me quite a fright. I thought you were in pain.”
“I am in pain,” he muttered.
Could she not see? He was heartsick.
“What hurts?” she asked, laying her hand on his brow. “You are not feverish, are you?”
“My heart,” he told her. “My heart is what hurts.”
She removed her hand, and he felt her stiffen beside him. “Jack, please.”
He reached for her hand through the darkness and yanked it to his chest. “Feel it, beating for you. Always for you, and you do not want it.”
His chest was bare, and the heat of her touch seared him l
ike a brand.
She tugged at her hand, trying to escape, but he was not ready to release her. The nightmare had not entirely fled him yet. The soul-crushing belief she was out of reach forever remained. He needed her here. He needed to touch her, to reassure himself he yet had seven days.
“You are making this far more difficult than it has to be,” she said.
He could argue the same about her.
“My nightmare was about you,” he told her. “We were in the lake, and you were swimming away from me. I was trying to swim after you, but you just kept getting farther and farther away. And I was drowning without you, my head under water until I could not breathe.”
“It was a dream, Jack. Nothing more.”
“But that is how the prospect of losing you feels, Nellie,” he admitted. “If I lose you, I will be a drowning man.”
Something about the darkness and the nightmare made honesty easier. He had been telling her he loved her since he had returned. Hell, he had told her in all the letters he had sent from abroad—the letters she had never read. But he had never told her how devastated he would be if he lost her forever.
“Jack.”
There was such sadness in her voice. Determination, too.
“Is forgiving me such an impossibility?” he asked. “Or do you hate me that much?”
“I do not hate you at all,” she whispered.
“You said you did,” Jack reminded her. “More than once.”
“I thought I did, but you confuse me.” She paused, as if collecting her thoughts. “I do not think I could ever hate you. I loved you too much for that.”
Loved. Past tense. Her choice of word was not lost upon him.
“Do you love Sidmouth?” He had asked her before, but she had never given him a proper answer. That conversation had been interrupted by Sidmouth’s arrival.
He needed to know now.
“No.”
Her admission was so soft, it was scarcely audible.
But he heard it. He heard it, and it gave him a fierce surge of hope.
Her Missing Marquess Page 21
