A Marquess' Forbidden Desire (Steamy Historical Regency)

by Lucinda Nelson

  He had taken a step towards her.

  She didn’t move away from him. She didn’t lower her eyes or her chin. She just stared right back at him.

  They were so close now. He felt himself acting without thinking and he didn’t know what he was going to do until he’d already done it.

  His hands rose and his fingertips fluttered up her arms. They were damp and cold. He could hear himself breathing unsteadily as his eyes rose up towards her face.

  And then, when he saw her eyes, his hands fell away.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he whispered. He felt as if speaking any louder would shatter whatever strange, electric feeling was pulsing through the air.

  Her lips had parted and he heard her take a breath. “I am cold, my Lord…” she whispered. “Will you please turn?”

  He blinked as her words finally sank in. “Of course,” he said. “Yes, of course.” Nodding like an idiot, he turned around so that he couldn’t see her.

  Alexander felt unsteady as he heard her pick up her gown. There was the sound of fabric rustling for some time, then a slick, heavy sound. The wet slip falling to the ground.

  Which meant that she stood there. Naked.

  He had to lift his eyes to the sky and felt a prayer come to his lips. God help him. He mouthed the words and closed his eyes, doing his utmost to control his breathing.

  “You may turn now,” she said.

  Alexander faced her again.

  “I have wanted to speak to you for some time, my Lady,” he rasped.

  “I think we have said all we need to say, my Lord.”

  His brow puckered softly. He’d known that she was angry with him, but he hadn’t expected it to last this long. “I spoke to your father,” he said.

  This seemed to interest her. She looked at him, though as one looks at someone they no longer trust. Nothing hurt him so much as that wary look of hers.

  “He has sent you a letter.” Alexander pulled it from his pocket. Marianne was so taken aback by this that she almost snatched it from him. Just as she reached out, she caught herself and drew her hand back.

  He didn’t withhold it. He wasn’t going to try to manipulate her. Alexander handed it to her willingly.

  Marianne cupped her hands over it and held it against her chest, but she wouldn’t open it in front of him. “Is that all you have come for? To deliver this letter?”

  “You know that isn’t true.” As he said this, Alexander lowered himself towards the ground and took a seat facing the lake. “As I said, I spoke to your father. But we discussed more than the delivery of a letter.”

  She didn’t sit beside him.

  “He told me what happened that night… that night we met in the grove.”

  He looked up at her and saw pain flash across her face. He understood, because the memory of that night brought him pain too. “What did he tell you?” She asked, in a suddenly shaky voice.

  Alexander patted the space beside him in answer.

  With obvious reluctance, she took a seat.

  “He told me what you said when they discovered you.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Marianne had closed her eyes.

  “You lied for me.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You lied to spare me. After I accused you.”

  He could see a sheen of tears emerge on her lashes. She didn’t wipe them away, so he did it for her. With a gentle hand, he brushed his knuckles across her cheek, catching any tears that rolled free.

  “I am so sorry for what I said, Marianne,” he whispered. “I realize now that it was easier for me to part with you on bad terms, than on good ones.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. His hand fell back to his side. “You called me selfish.”

  “I did,” he said, with a countenance twisted by sadness. “And nothing has been farther from the truth.”

  Marianne looked away from him then and shook her head. “That is not true,” she said. “I have been selfish.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “But it’s true. You were right. I didn’t realize it entirely at the time, but I think there was a part of me that wanted you to call off the marriage, and not wholly for your own sake.” Her voice was strained. It was clearly a difficult thing for her to admit.

  It took a moment for this to sink in. At last, he expelled a breath and said, “But that wasn’t all, was it? You wanted to protect me.”

  She nodded. “I did. That much was true.”

  They sat like that for a while, until she spoke again.

  “Why have you kept coming, my Lord? Truly?”

  He expelled a slow breath. “When I heard that you’d lied for me and that you’d run away, I couldn’t bring myself to forget about you.”

  “So you have come to set things right between us,” she concluded.

  In truth, he didn’t really know why he’d kept coming, or what he’d planned to do when he finally got an audience with her. Here she was, right in front of him, and he didn’t know what to say.

  “I suppose,” he answered.

  She smiled a little. “You suppose?”

  “Well…” he was strangely at a loss for words. “I suppose I’d hoped to bring you back to your family.”

  Marianne quirked a brow. “If you came to convince me of that, you will have a hard time of it.”

  “Your father misses you very much.”

  Her smile slipped away and she nodded as she looked back out over the lake. “I miss him too.”

  “But you will not come.”

  She shook her head. “Not until you’ve married Eliza. Perhaps not even then.”

  He blinked at her in surprise. “Why?”

  “Since my confession, Eliza has made living in that house rather difficult. When you marry her, she won’t be there anymore.”

  She will be with me instead, he thought. That cold, bitter, shallow woman.

  “I am sorry that she has tortured you so,” Alexander murmured.

  She smiled over at him, but it wasn’t a true smile. It looked terribly sad. “You needn’t be sorry for me, my Lord. It is I who is sorry for you.”

  She said it without maliciousness. And he knew what she was implying. That she was sorry for him because he would suffer a lifetime of Eliza.

  He swallowed.

  “Then I suppose if I cannot bring you back home, I had hoped to make amends.”

  “Our last attempt at friendship did not go well,” she reminded him.

  He nodded. “That is true. Then perhaps not friends. But amicable brother and sister-in-law?” It felt like a peculiar thing to say. To imagine her as his sister by law, when he’d wanted nothing more than for her to be his wife.

  When he still wanted nothing more than that.

  She laughed. A bright and sincere sound. When she looked over at him again, her cheeks were rosy. “Am I to be your amicable sister?”

  “If it pleases you.”

  “It pleases me more than strangers or enemies.”

  “I could never be your enemy, Marianne.”

  Again, she smiled. Then she looked down at the letter he’d given her. “May I read this?”

  “Of course.” He looked out over the lake to afford her some semblance of privacy. He heard her rip the letter open. As she read, he considered what he would do next. Having spoken to her and had little success in persuading her to come home, what could he do?

  He could keep returning, in the hopes of changing her mind about going home. But honestly, it seemed like she was better off here. Though she clearly missed her father.

  Then should he simply stop visiting her?

  A terrible option. One he cast from his mind almost instantly.

  “Oh,” he heard Marianne say. She’d finished the letter and now held it limply in her lap.

  “Are you upset?” He asked.

  “He misses me awfully,” she said, in a shaky voice.

  “He does,” Alexander confirmed. />
  “I… I wish I could see him.”

  “He wanted to come, but I told him not to.”

  She accepted this with a nod. “Thank you for that. If he comes here, Eliza won’t be far behind. He never goes anywhere without mother knowing about it. And once mother knows, Eliza will soon know too.”

  “And letters?”

  Marianne shook her head. “Mother would know if he sent a letter to me. None of the staff would dare send a letter without making mother aware of it.”

  Alexander was frowning. It seemed like such a peculiar marriage. Was that the sort of relationship he was destined to have with Eliza? A shiver snuck down his spine.

  “I will bring the letters,” he said. “I will deliver the letters between you and your father. Eliza will have some trouble tracking my whereabouts.”

  Yes, and this duty meant something crucial. That he would be able to continue visiting Marianne. He would come with word from her father and return her replies. He would be the messenger, so that her father would not visit himself and risk Eliza discovering her whereabouts.

  And so that he could see her.

  Yes, and by keeping her relationship with her father strong, he would increase the likelihood of her wanting to return to her family someday. Perhaps after his marriage to Eliza had taken her tyranny elsewhere, as Marianne had suggested.

  “Are you quite certain, my Lord?” Marianne said, with a frown. “It is a long way to Mayfair. And you are a busy man.”

  “I am quite certain,” he assured her. “Consider it an apology, for what I said.”

  As he said this, Alexander stood and put his hand out to her so that he could help her to her feet. She looked at his open hand, then back up to his face, before slipping her palm into his.

  Chapter 33

  Lady Marianne Purcell, Daughter of the Baron of Westlake

  They fitted together like two halves of an oyster shell.

  She stood, but he did not let go of her hand for a moment. It was her that let go. “We should go back to the house,” Marianne said. “I expect that Lord Blackwood came with you?”

  “He did.”

  Marianne nodded. “Then he must have been waiting a long time.”

  “He’s with Miss Cole,” Alexander assured her. He didn’t want to go back just yet. He didn’t want this quiet time between them to end. He’d thought they could take a walk together through the gardens.

  Marianne looked surprised. “She came downstairs?”

  “She did. Does that surprise you? He told me that she met with him yesterday too.”

  “She did,” Marianne said. “I just didn’t expect her to meet with him again,” she admitted.

  “They are an interesting pair,” Alexander remarked, as they started to walk.

  “They most certainly are.”

  “Do you believe they are well-matched?”

  She was quiet for a few moments, while she thought. And then she smiled and nodded. “I think they are.”

  “Their difference in rank is the core issue.”

  “A difference of little importance, considering their affection for one another.”

  “A lovely sentiment,” he admitted. “But have you ever known a maid to marry a Marquess?”

  She looked at him and he could feel her disappointment in him. It made his stomach turn. “I have known madder things to happen.”

  They walked for a few more moments, before he answered her. “My cynicism bothers you,” he murmured.

  “Only because I wonder if it is yours.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled a little. “I mean that the man I met in Bath seemed to laugh in the face of expectation. He even wore a mask. A rather mad thing to do if you ask me. I wonder if your current cynicism is not your own, but something someone else has given you.”

  This made him frown too. “Sometimes I feel like the man you met in Bath was someone else entirely. Someone other than me.”

  “Well, who do you prefer? Yourself now or the man in Bath?”

  This question caught him off guard. His smile slipped away and his brow furrowed. It shouldn’t be so difficult to answer, but it was. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  She shrugged. “Well, whoever you prefer, you can decide to be that man. So perhaps you should take some time to consider it.”

  “Is it so simple as that? Choosing who you want to be?”

  “I believe that it can be, if we allow it to be.”

  It was such an unusual notion to him. One that he couldn’t quite accept, but he decided not to argue the subject. It could too easily descend down the path their last conversation on this particular subject had taken.

  And he did not want to argue with Marianne ever again.

  They walked for some time together and began to discuss things that they’d missed out on in the past. Like the things they enjoyed, the things they disliked. Little things.

  Sometimes it was as simple as what they liked to eat. The kind of wine they enjoyed. She admitted that though she drank wine, she’d never really enjoyed it.

  “Then why do you drink it?” He asked.

  “Because my mother did not let me drink it until last year. I’d wanted it for so long, that when I finally had it I couldn’t admit to anyone that I didn’t like it.”

  He laughed. “So you’ve never told them?”

  “Never,” she admitted, with a broad smile. “Not even my father knows. It’s one of my greatest secrets.”

  “And you continue to drink it?”

  “At every meal. It is terribly foul stuff.”

  Alexander laughed again. After that, they went on to talk about him. “Do you have any secrets?” She asked.

  “I think you might be my biggest secret, Lady Marianne.”

  She quirked a brow. “What is there to keep secret about me?”

  Alexander smiled softly, but didn’t answer. She didn’t press, which he was eternally grateful for.

  “Very well then,” she conceded. “Who are you keeping me a secret from?”

  “My father,” he admitted. “He does not entirely approve of my visiting you.”

  “And yet you do so anyway.”

  “I am trying to be my own man.”

  “A tricky thing,” she acknowledged. “And why does your father hate you visiting me so much?”

  “He worries that I am infatuated with you,” Alexander admitted. “And that it will ruin his agreement with your father regarding my marriage to Eliza.”

  For a moment, she didn’t answer. But then she said, “Well, you must assure him that I’m no threat, my Lord. He should know that your heart can’t be swayed.”

  Alexander stopped walking when she said that, but she did not. He stared at her back as she walked and thought about what she’d said. Spoken out of hurt, he was sure, but she didn’t let it show.

  He caught up to her and let the matter fall into silence for several minutes. Because what could he say in his defense? She was right. He had made his choice and he wouldn’t be swayed on it.

  “You must think me rather heartless,” he murmured.

  “I don’t think you’re heartless, my Lord,” she answered. She looked up at the sky and he followed her gaze. The clouds were rolling in and it looked like a storm would come soon. “I think you have more heart than most.”

  “You are trying to spare my feelings.”

  “No,” she said, in such a level voice that he almost believed her. “I believe that you are a man full of heart. Truly I do. But I think that you have become rather adept, over the years, at acting without consideration for your heart.”

  It was a shockingly astute deduction. One that made him feel naked but… but understood. A strange feeling of mortification and relief.

  When they reached the estate, they saw Becky and Julius standing outside. They paused on the path and watched them for a few moments.

  “Do you think she will change her mind?” Alexander wondered, as he watched them.


  “I don’t know,” she confessed. “We have not long been friends.”

  This surprised him.

  “You seem so close,” Alexander remarked.