by Jess Russell
He swiped his hands over his face and then cinched the belt of his banyan closed. Enough mawkish drivel. Time to make a child.
He’d been put in a different set of apartments to the room he had used on the rare occasions when he had stayed at Malvern House. This suite was configured for a married couple, a withdrawing room separating the two bed chambers and dressing rooms.
His hand trembled slightly as he lifted it to knock. He was about to rap again when the door swung open.
His wife stood before him. Her stance put him in mind of a prisoner in front of a firing squad.
Sweet Satan, had he downed an entire bottle of brandy it would not be enough for this assignation. Oh, to feel a ball of waxy opium on his tongue… Anything to dull some of the nervous anticipation rolling through him.
Someone, had seen fit to give her a gown and a wrapper. Likely Margaret, judging by the style of this ensemble. Altogether too many bows and ruffles on his petite bride.
In contrast, her hair, tied with a simple white ribbon, hung in a maidenly braid over her shoulder, while her pink toes peeped beneath the gown’s flounced hem. He had to stop himself from dropping to his knees and kissing them. She would surely question his sanity.
No, his Owl was gone. Wisely, that girl had flown away. This new woman, dressed so richly, he did not know.
Not yet.
“Was your bath pleasant? Did you eat? Is the room to your liking?” Idiot. Hardly questions framed for lovemaking.
She looked at the floor and then the ceiling and finally at her hands. “Yes. I thank you.”
He did not want her thanks, by God. He was the one that owed her. All he’d had to do was stand there, mutter a few words, and sign a few papers.
She twisted the ring on her finger as if it chaffed her. She must have wound a bit of ribbon around the band to keep the damned thing from falling off.
Monstrous ring. He wanted to pull it off and heave it out the window. It cheapened her.
On the morrow he would go to the jeweler first thing. She would have something new, something of his choosing. The Drakes had troves of gaudy rubbish he could give her, but she required something simple, unblemished, and all her own.
She dropped her hands, hiding them behind her back.
“Anne. We do not have to do this tonight.”
“What?”
“You do not have to lie with me.”
“Lie with you?” She frowned. “But—I lied.” She lifted her chin. “I lied about…about the child.”
“Do you imagine you are the first to do so?”
“But your father, the duke, said he will send you back if we—if there is no child.”
“Yes, that is true.”
He could have said more. He could have given her another chance at a reprieve. But he didn’t. He was a selfish bastard. He wanted this new woman. This wife.
His look must have told his thoughts. She glanced at the bed and then turned her back to him.
Silly Owl. Did she imagine turning her back would preserve her modesty?
She bent her head, exposing the white column of neck feathered with down just at the nape.
He licked his dry lips.
She fumbled with the tie at her waist and shrugged out of the wrapper. The silk ran down her arms. Sweet Jesu, the sight of her profile, her surprised mouth parted, as she caught the robe before it dropped to the floor, had him nearly leaping on her.
Her fingers smoothed the silk. She frowned as she carefully laid it over a nearby chair.
Before he could drink in her shape minus one delicious layer, she snuffed the lamp and then quickly slid beneath the sheets. Timid as a fledgling.
His Owl of old, the one back in his cell at Ballencrieff, would have slain him with her schoolgirl seduction.
However, the Marchioness of Devlin was a whole other kettle of poisson.
His cock bobbed against his belly, so eager to dive into her pot.
At least in the full darkness, he could slip out of his robe without exposing himself to her gaze. Though he needn’t have worried. His audience was tucked up to her chin, her gaze fixed on the bed’s golden canopy.
He dropped the robe to the floor and joined her.
She lay stiffly next to him and he, who had satisfied dozens of women, had not the first idea of how to approach a wife.
She even smelled different. Some perfumed scent, not unpleasant, but not his Anne. The rose aroma mixed with her heat, adding another subtle layer. What would her neck taste like now? Her breasts? Her belly? Her…
The gold and cream room with its cherubs clustered around a central frieze—it looked to be Zeus as a swan, pursuing his Leda—so unlike his old environs, did nothing to ease his bridegroom nerves. Nor did the plush feather mattress, or the fine linen sheets. Somehow, being fettered in chains, tucked up snug in his cell, he had been freer than in this opulent bedchamber in the heart of Mayfair.
He couldn’t touch her. His wife. His Owl.
He jerked the covers off his stiff cock and bolted out of the room.
****
The door clicked shut, a period to their brief encounter.
Foolish tears stung Anne’s eyes. What had she expected when their marriage was a sham? Apparently, the need for a child was not enough to override his not wanting her. Now out in the world, her meager charms were not enough to tempt him.
She flung the bedclothes aside. Ignoring the chill, she jerked the curtains open, wanting to somehow change the room. She unlatched and pushed open the casement. Cold pricked her skin. She welcomed it, wanting to flush the smell of him from her nose. This new, clean smell that had her aching to press herself against his body, to taste his flesh.
Light. She wanted light. The sulfur of a dozen matches took care of any lingering smell he might have left in the room. A waste of lamp oil, but what did it matter? She was a marchioness. She must learn to waste.
An enormous full-length mirror stood along the wall balanced between two golden birds. Cranes? She thought they were cranes. She had avoided the looking glass thus far, but now it drew her. What would it be like to see her entire body without one stitch of clothing?
Already she could see the shadow of her maiden-hair beneath her silken gown—the gown Lady Austin had insisted she wear for her “Bridal Night.”
Silk filled her hands as she gathered more and more of the fabric, exposing her ankles, her calves, her knees, thighs, the dark triangle at her center, and then her belly and breasts. She dragged it over her head and let it drop to the floor.
Next, she pulled the end of the ribbon that held her hair, and in a mere breath it unraveled itself to spill over her body. One nipple poked through the dark curtain as if playing peek-a-boo. Her mouth parted in a gasp as her fingers grazed the pink nub. Yes, she liked that. James had pinched—
“Ahh!”
She turned her back on this wanton woman. But unable to resist, she looked over her shoulder. Fascinated, and not a little shocked, she pulled her hair aside and looped it around her wrist as he had done at Ballencrieff.
Her bottom was very round…and firm. Her hand slid up, dipping to settle at her waist. It felt so nice. She did it again. Would he like it too? Would he delight in this curve of round bottom to dimpled waist? Would he see it as beautiful? Was her body beautiful?
He had not even stayed to see. He had risen from her bed as if he could not even bear lying next to her. The hair at her nape stung as she yanked her hand from the tangled mass. Tears blinding her, she ran around the room snuffing every lamp, as if they had eyes to see her shame. Without even donning her gown, she threw herself into the bed, its feather mattress a cocoon for her shaking body. But she couldn’t stand it—the sheets against her bare body too much. She ended wearing her old gray gown to bed.
If only something could be the same. If only she had some handhold in this strange new world. Was Malvern House to be yet another Ardsmoore, but this time a gilded cage instead of a cold, dank, schoolhouse? When would she
finally belong somewhere? Be wanted and needed. Be loved.
Her hand settled on her belly. So flat and empty. A child would need her, love her. A child who would not have to be alone, who would be cherished.
A beautiful dark boy with gray eyes and a crooked smile.
But what if the child were a girl? What if she had the gift? Could it be passed on? Had one of her parents had it? She couldn’t remember.
Well, no matter. She would make sure she was there to explain the sensations and the rolling vibrations. Her child would not have to wonder if she were possessed by the devil or endure being called a witch. She would not have to sit alone, far from the other girls who made sport of her. Her child would be protected, taught to know a blessing lay within her, not a curse.
Her new husband may not want her, but she was his wife and they needed to make a child. She needed to make her lie a reality. She would see it done. And she would at least have the beginnings of a family.
Tomorrow she would be ready.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Devlin.” Austin stood in the doorway.
Dev clamped his teeth and turned away.
“We must talk. You cannot shut me out forever. I am your only brother. We must hash this out.”
After leaving Anne he’d spent the entire night pacing this library searching through every nook and cranny for a bottle. Nothing. Now Austin. He did not want this conversation. Not now. Austin scanned the chaos. “What happened here? You look like the devil.”
He snorted.
“Sorry, not the best comparison. Did you lose something?” His brother hovered just inside the door as if unsure it was safe to enter.
“Couldn’t sleep.” As if that was a reasonable explanation for the room being in a toss.
“It is early. You have only just returned. You must give—yourself—some time.”
“Anne, you mean. I must give my bride time to adjust to being shackled to me.” His laugh sounded demonic even to his own ears.
“Dev, I hate to see you this way.”
God, he knew the flask had to be somewhere in this bloody room.
“Will you hear me out?”
He must have made some sign of acquiescence, because Austin entered, righting this and that as he gravitated farther into the room.
His brother’s tidying set Dev’s teeth on edge. He retreated to the windows. The back garden still boasted its perfectly-clipped topiaries—a new one looked to be in the shape of a Japanese pagoda. Mr. Hiro must be four score and then some, but obviously still wielded his shears with fierce precision. It occurred to him that his brother would make a very fine topiary—not a leaf out of place, all perfect angles and curves. A mix of symmetry and artful whimsy.
“I should never have let the painting out of my sight. Father needed me, and of course I went. Like always.” Austin placed several books back on a shelf, and then lined them up according to size. “I should never have trusted Macready. I checked the floorboard under your cot. Of course there was nothing. How was I to know you were stashing private drawings there?”
Was Anne awake now? Had she slept at all?
“Dev?”
“Yes, I heard, Macready.” He dragged his gaze from the ceiling to the now perfectly ordered books and then to his brother. Was Austin lying? Best to play it close to the vest. For now. “I suppose you cannot be blamed for Macready being the shite he is. Ever since he lost his prime spot as my keeper, he had to find ever more creative ways to get to me.”
“I was supposed to be the strong one at Ballencrieff. I was supposed to take care of you.”
“So why didn’t you?” So much for keeping his cards hidden. “Hives, or somebody, was clearly poisoning me those first months at Ballencrieff, yet when I tried to tell you, you would not believe me.”
“Dev, you were sick. Hives was the doctor. Was I supposed to second guess his therapies?”
“Yet you provided me with extra laudanum.”
“You begged me to help you sleep, complaining Hives would not give you enough.”
He had been grateful and began relying on Austin for his peace. Perhaps, he should not have done so.
“I guess I let it go to my head a bit.” His brother scuffed at the edge of the carpet. “You finally needing me. Being your life-line.”
“Austin, stop. You give yourself too much credit, or rather power. We neither of us have much of that when it comes to our sire. Father was never going to renege on his one year plan for me.”
Austin leaned his forehead against the shelf. “You don’t understand.”
“Then let’s turn this page. What’s done is done.”
Austin shook his head. His laughter held a bitter edge. “Remember how I used to dog you? But you never minded a little half-brother who, if the rumors are true, is no brother at all.” Austin shut the door of a glass-fronted cabinet.
Where was that damned flask? He’d been dead sure he’d tucked behind a hideous Staffordshire dog when he’d been escaping from his father over ten years ago.
“But as you got older things changed. You were the ‘heir.’ Suddenly all the attention was on you.”
All the negative attention. God, he could not so much as fart without his tutors or his father reprimanding him, reminding him of his duty.
“You changed. I was no longer a comrade, but a nagging brat. I tried so hard to find a way back to you, but it was useless. I was useless. I was only the ‘spare’ and not a reliable one at that.” He stood in front of the fire box and kicked at a dead coal which had spilled out onto the tiled hearth.
“When Father would not let you go away to school, I was ecstatic. My big brother was not leaving me. But I was wrong. You had left, just not physically. I think that was the hardest for me—you being there, yet not being there.”
He remembered that time. Vaguely. It had been torture. No friends, being isolated except for a stable of tutors. His only happiness came from concocting elaborate mathematical equations or painting. Then one day he came upon two poachers. Terrified, they ran leaving their disemboweled prey.
The organs lay like jewels within a casket of skin and bone. Muscles knitting the body together… So beautiful. Never a religious man, yet looking into that slain deer, one could not doubt the presence of God.
“Dev, are you listening?”
He opened his eyes. Austin now stood before him.
“Do you remember when I smashed this very window?”
The huge mullioned bow window winked in the light. He shook his head.
“Don’t you recall it used to be filled with hundreds of stained-glass roses?”
By God, yes. As a boy the colored glass had fascinated him. He’d spent hours tracing the twining patterns of leaves and blooms. Now, plain diamond panes replaced the once glorious window. Showed how much he’d paid attention.
“On my twelfth birthday I stood, rocks still in hand, right in the midst of the broken glass, and nobody even blinked. They simply scurried around me with their brooms whispering about what ‘the marquess has done.’ Some new stunt you had pulled. It was then I knew I really didn’t matter. I became jealous as hell. It was in that moment I decided I would matter. I would be the good son; the son Father loved and relied upon.”
He must have been sixteen or seventeen. What had he done to have the household so up in arms? Hell, he couldn’t recall. “Then, when you were flitting around the Continent with Wainwright, I thought this is my chance.”
Ha, like a bull out of a chute he’d been. Independent and so hungry. God, he’d wanted to try everything. And he had.
“I pushed myself to excel at school, married Margaret because Father wanted the match, and I immersed myself in the workings of the estates. But it was no good. I was no good because my mother was a whore and I’m, for all intents and purposes, a bastard.”
“Austin—”
“Let me finish. So when Father sent you to Ballencrieff, I decided I would be your champion. If you had to depend on me, on
ly me, we could go back to being best friends. And with you out of the picture, Father would finally see I was the son he’d always hoped for. A sap-sculled idiot, that’s what I am. Trying to play both sides.” He shook his head. “I should have gone into the army as I’d wanted. That was my role as second son. Why did I not take it?” His brother touched one of the diamond panes in the window.
“You are too strong for me.” Austin ran his finger over the bevel in the glass. “And you do not need me. I have lost everything. Father is still fixated on you, I am saddled with a wife I do not love, and now I have likely lost the only family I care about.” Austin turned to him. “You.”
And he had always envied Austin being the second son. What a joke the pair of them were.
Sweet Satan, all this confession called for a drink. Or ten. He pushed away from the windowsill to troll the room once again. Heedless of disturbing the odds and ends Austin had so carefully set to rights. Why the hell was his bloody father a teetotaler?
Eureka! A tarnished silver flask stood wedged between the books. Ha. That’s right, he had switched the hiding place, shelving the liquor next to Shakespeare’s sonnets, where he was sure no one would bother to look.
His hands shook as he twisted the stopper and then tipped it up. Nothing.
Harsh laughter spilled from his lips as he collapsed to the floor. Every blasted drop dried up.
“Excuse me. I did not mean my apology to be a joke.”
Shite. “My apologies, Austin. When one lives in one’s head for too long with little company, one tends to act inappropriately.”
“Have you heard anything I’ve said?”
“Yes, dear brother. It seems we would have done well to have switched places.” Far better to be a bastard and be free of all this constraint and enormous pressure. Though he would not want to be saddled with Margaret. Saddled was just the word—a great horse of a woman. He bit his lip to stop the laughter.
“Dev, might we begin anew?”
“Yes, anew. We should toast with some good French brandy.”
Austin frowned.
“Oh, come now. You would deny me a snort or two? I can’t stop everything, brother mine. I have to have some vices, or I’ll really go mad in this mausoleum.” He had certainly not taken the edge off his lust. What must Anne think of him? Would he have the courage to go to her tonight? To bed her?
