“I see.” But she had been so upset, far more than the incident deserved. He was right. Marcus would never have hurt Viola in that way. He had never caused scandal in his single days, always took his role as heir to the marquisate seriously. Why would he suddenly engage in an orgy now?
The Adrian she knew did not compare to the legend. Had he helped create it to provide a useful distance for himself? Livia knew how avidly dukes were pursued, even the older ones, the widowed and the ones with what her mother termed “unfortunate personal habits.” The smelly ones, in other words. Adrian was none of these. He was remarkably handsome, in the private life and far more intelligent than she found comfortable. A good thing, to have someone to challenge her.
He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, clasping his hands together. “Livia, if you marry me, you’ll hear many stories with me set as the villain. Most are not true. I encouraged the stories for many years, or rather, did not care what people said. I do now, because of you but if you cannot come to me and know that I will always tell you the truth, we are finished with one another.” He waited for the space of three heartbeats. “You must make your mind up. I promise that I will not lie to you on these matters. But you alone must decide if the truth lies in your heart or not.” He lifted his hands to the arms of the chair, as if to get to his feet. “Shall I leave you to decide?”
She swallowed. He had been true to her thus far, answered everything she asked him. She shook her head. “There’s no need. You’re right.”
Unmistakable signs of relief swept through his expression. His mouth relaxed and the tense lines in his forehead smoothed out. “Thank you.”
“But, Adrian, this shows how little we know one another. We should wait. Neither of us are pressured to marry, are we? We don’t have to rush.”
“You’re getting cold feet.” His smile warmed her now. “Don’t. Spend as much time with me as you wish. As far as I’m concerned, we can’t spend too much time together. But don’t jilt me.”
That sounded like a plea. She wanted to test him, and at the same time test her power over him, that power she was barely beginning to understand. “Why not?”
“Because if you do, I can never approach you again,” he responded readily. “I cannot come near you. We will never have this chance if you do that. I will not demur, naturally, I will leave immediately.” He paused, as if searching for words.
“Then I will not.” She hadn’t meant to say that, but she couldn’t bear the sadness in his eyes. She must be some kind of fool, but she believed his version of the story. He had offered no proof, but she no longer felt the need to talk to Marcus as urgently as she had. “Not jilt you, I mean.” Not yet.
“It would probably put the last nail in the coffin of my social acceptance.” He spread his hands, palms toward her. “You would be doing me a favor.”
“I see. So do you want me to?” The tease was irresistible.
“No.” Rising to his feet in a smooth motion, he held out his hands, this time inviting her to take hold. She did, the blanket she wore slipping off her shoulders and falling to the chair behind her. A chill hit her body and she shivered even as he folded his arms around her. “We should get out of this ice pit and find a room with a fire.”
She wouldn’t argue with that. “I could show you the house.”
“When you’ve warmed up.”
He surrounded her, holding her close to his heat. His body was a furnace. Livia nestled in, soaking it up, giving herself the illusion that this man could protect her from everything that troubled her. Used to caring for herself for so long, the notion came to her as a balm. Even if it wasn’t true, he gave her a respite from thinking, from a life that occasionally threatened to move out of her control.
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?” He sounded surprised. “How do you know I’m not lying to you?” A thread of anxiety worked its way through his words.
“For doubting you.”
He laughed gently, the vibrations rumbling through his chest, transmitting themselves to her cheek. “Is that all? People doubt me all the time. You had reason to, sweetheart. I don’t know who told you, but they may have done so in good faith. They were wrong, but they might have seen something and misinterpreted it. I swear to you now that while I am with you, I will not seek out another woman.” He laughed again. “I take one woman at a time. While I was once not averse to spending time with a whore, I never tupped them.”
“What?” She drew back to stare up at his face. “Why not?”
His smile broadened into a grin. “Not many women would ask that. Since you have, the answer is simple. Most whores carry diseases.”
“The pox?”
“Precisely. Having seen the consequences at close quarters, I have no desire to take that path. My father died of it, you know.”
“Oh.”
“Indeed, oh. That was how they knew for sure that I was not his son. My mother showed no signs of the disease and I was a healthy baby.”
“I had heard that she had it too.” But rumors abounded. She could not be sure of anything anymore.
“She did, but not until after I was born. She still lives with the consequences.”
“Ah.” She would not ask about the blackamoor page. Refused to question him on that.
“It was obvious that my father would have no more children. He died of the pox and overindulgence in everything. The doctor was not sure of the direct cause of death, so he put it down to drink.” He waited, as if expecting her to recoil, but she only felt sorry for him. “I don’t remember him. Only my grandfather, who took me away from my mother when I was born and reared me carefully. Too carefully,” he added with a wry grin. “He compelled my father to acknowledge me.”
“Oh,” she said again. Nobody had heard these truths before. And they would not hear them from her. “My brothers are the same. When they were single they employed mistresses and took care to ensure their health.”
“It’s the scourge of our age. Worse because it’s hidden.”
She smiled, the comparison too delicious to ignore. “You sound like a clergyman.”
“They’re not always wrong.” He shook his head. “You are the most remarkable woman. You never flinch from the truth, never make excuses. What a subject to be talking about, when you’re in my arms!”
“Better now than later.”
“Indeed so. But do you mind not talking for a minute or two?” Tilting her chin up, he bent his head to her.
His kiss was as gentle as the touch of a baby, but with far more intent. As he’d taught her, she opened her mouth for him, but he only traced her lips with the tip of his tongue, before holding her close and kissing her again. “Have you eaten?” he said when his lips left hers. His words brushed tantalizingly against her mouth.
She shook her head. “Only a bread roll with my chocolate this morning.”
“You like chocolate in the mornings? A decadence I find hard to believe in practical, quiet Lady Livia Shaw. Perhaps there is fire beneath the sensible attitude. Like your hair.” Lifting his hand, he stroked her hair back, tucked his fingers between the strands but didn’t attempt to dislodge the pins or her cap. “It’s the color of angel hair, but it has a touch of the sun. Hidden depths.” Humor laced his deep voice. “I’ll ensure you have chocolate in the mornings for the rest of your life, if you want it.”
No warning bells sounded in her mind, no flashes of self-defense. She badly wanted to give herself to this man. She’d told him the secret she had to, that she was not a virgin, but she was not yet ready to tell him the other. That secret was so deeply locked in her heart she didn’t know if she could ever tell anyone who didn’t already know. Telling the truth would be pulling her finger out of the dam and letting the sea rush through and drown her.
Another shiver shook her, but this time not from cold.
“Come. Let’s get you to breakfast and out of this room.”
“Oh, breakfast is well over. Mama has it served much earlier in the country.”
“I’m sure we can find something. I regret sleeping too late to join everyone.”
She lifted her chin and met his eyes. “You missed it too? Then we should. Men are not allowed to starve.”
Smiling, he released her, but linked his fingers through hers, steadying her with his strength. “Only scrawny boys who are sent out on the streets too early in their lives.”
“Yes.” Thinking of her son, she closed her eyes. But then she recalled Mickey. “You brought your protégé here?”
“Of course. He’s probably set the whole kitchen on its ear by now. He’s too intelligent for his own good, that child. Knows exactly how to set one person against another.” Opening the door, he paused to check the hallway, poking his head out and looking left and right. “Come.” He drew her out, and they walked to the end of the corridor as if they’d been strolling around the house all morning. “Mickey is a constant source of amusement. I fear, though I will have to decide what to do with him eventually. He cannot be my page all his life. I’m forever tripping over him, and I swear my patience will run out before long.”
“You didn’t have to take him.”
“Yes, I did. Believe me.” He wouldn’t expound on that enigmatic statement but walked her briskly around the corner into another corridor, this one lined with cabinets displaying the china Livia’s grandmother had adored. These days they were a little dusty, especially this time of year, when the chill invaded the corridors of her home. The staff would get it out soon, wash it and get it ready for the celebrations to come.
She loved this time of year. All the family they could muster arrived at Haxby for the season, and the house grew busy and full. This time an unaccustomed nervousness filled her. Her skittishness where Adrian was concerned overrode every other emotion. And her growing desire for him.
At the end of the corridor, at the juncture with another, he abruptly stopped, and pulled her around to face him. Her cheeks heating, Livia tried to turn away but his hold on her arms was firm, just short of bruising. “We need a date,” he said. “You refused to give a date in the contract, just ‘the next six months.’ What are we to tell your family?”
“Have they spoken to you?”
“Your father has. He wants us to wed as soon as possible, to show the world we are serious. Either that, he said, or not at all. At the end of six months our arrangement is terminated. He had that put in the contract.”
“But that is what we want, is it not?” Although she lowered her voice, the sound still echoed in the still, waiting space.
“No. We should be more certain. We are, after all, in love.”
“You told them that?” Heedless of her surroundings or who might be listening, her voice rose.
“No, your father says he sees it. He’s suffered the throes of his other children doing the same thing, and he can see the same here.”
“Then we must be better at dissimulation than he thinks.” Surely physical attraction was not the same as a lasting connection? But she had no way of knowing. She had not discussed such matters with her siblings and they had not ventured to confide in her. Even the latest to be married, Drusilla, had kept her own counsel. But Dru was like that, full of secrets.
Chapter 11
Adrian found Livia maddening when she wasn’t being adorable. The temptation to go further with her in that little room was close to unbearable, until he felt her shiver against him and knew it was not from passion. She had frozen there, waiting for her brother to arrive. And avoiding him too. She had not appeared at the jovial, bustling breakfast, and he had not managed to get anything out of her tight-lipped maid. In a way he was glad of that because he appreciated a loyal servant, but why now, and why this servant?
Realizing what she was doing, he’d tried every door on that benighted corridor, the one at the front that looked out over the drive. The fear in her eyes when he came in had struck him to the heart. How could he leave her then? He’d known she was afraid, angry, doubtful. Where he would have ordinarily left a woman to stew, knowing she would be more eager to see him when he deigned to present himself, he could not do it in this case. Thinking of Livia distressed, perhaps in tears, struck him to the core.
What was he thinking? Was he turning into the kind of henpecked man he despised? No, because Livia did not do that to him. But his desire to protect her had driven him to deliver the kind of kiss that would reassure her rather than turn her away.
He wanted her, and now that she had awakened his desire he wanted to enter into the next part of his life. Finally, he felt ready to move on. On to what, he wasn’t sure, but not what he was leaving behind.
Now he was ready, Livia was not. Her evasions maddened him. As he accompanied her down to the huge painted hall to greet her brother, who had finally arrived with his family, he pondered his change of heart. Inside, he had altered and that was because of Livia. She intrigued him, drew him in with her secrets. That damned brooch had interested him, but she fascinated him far more. He wanted to know all her secrets. Every single one.
In return, he would have to give his own secrets into her keeping. He should do that before they married. And marry they would. Sooner than she thought too.
* * * *
That same evening the family held a dinner for their landed neighbors. Christmas was one of the few times the two factions, Country and County, came together. Each despised the other, and respected them too, recognized the vital places each held. The County men looked after local affairs, took their positions extremely seriously. Country men, on the whole the nobility, ran the country and its position in the world.
The king? He did very little, although he thought he ran everything. County and Country agreed on that.
Adrian was an observer here. His part of the world lay farther north, where he had similar tussles and agreements to cope with. The large dining room, the table opened to its fullest extent in honor of the guests, glittered with candlelight. It made the cut-crystal glasses twinkle and the silverware gleam. A three-course dinner lay ahead, with twenty removes to each course. Adrian settled to watching.
At least he had Livia next to him. The old way of dining, gentlemen on one side of the table and ladies on the other had more or less been abandoned by all but the old-fashioned. They had entered the dining room by rank, but servants had discreetly directed them to different places. Adrian enjoyed not being the only duke present, although as the eighth in direct line, he was the senior.
On her other side, Sir Jeffrey Creasey had secured a seat. “Should you not be sitting at the other end of the table?” he asked smoothly.
No doubt he wanted Livia to himself. Such a shame Adrian had determined that he would not have that signal favor.
“His lordship was kind enough to bid us sit where we chose,” he said. Five hours close to one of the prosy bores he’d met tonight would probably kill him. Either that, or he would kill them. “I’ve never stood on ceremony,” he continued, moderating his tone to the smooth, careless one most calculated to irritate the young squire. “Some do. The Duke of Richmond, for instance, a relative newcomer to the ducal rank, detests anyone except the monarch taking precedence over him. Therefore, I delight in doing so.”
At least Livia laughed. Sir Jeffrey did not. “You do not believe in adhering to age-old customs and procedures, then?”
Was the man trying to start a fight? Probably. “When it makes sense, yes. But why hold to customs that don’t make sense?”
“Because people are comfortable that way.”
“Are they? Or is it the people making the customs who are satisfied? I seem to recall that once people did everything by bartering goods. I would hate that restored. If they had not changed, we would still be bringing herds of cows into town to pay
for our vegetables.”
“Or in my case, sheep,” Lady Claudia’s husband murmured from the other side of the lady next to Adrian. Sandwiched between the twins, Adrian was struck by their differences, not their similarities. Both preferred not to powder, but that was a fashion spreading among the younger generation. He adopted the new fashion, because it took half a ton of the stuff to cover his dark hair properly, and by then he was wheezing from the clouds of powder in the air.
Their hair glowed in this kindly, warm light, and their eyes sparkled. Claudia’s eyes were a touch lighter than Livia’s, and she was perhaps a little more rounded. That was most likely caused by her recent confinement.
The thought of Livia rounded in that way, with his child, hit him with shocking intensity. The inner vision had appeared out of the blue, but once he’d seen it, the notion would not go away.
Could he really do this, and sire an heir to the title? That would at least stop his cousin complaining, but more than that, he might actually rid the family of the curse that had dogged them for so long. Since the Restoration no duke had died content with his life. Until now, Adrian had taken for granted that he would go the same way.
“But these changes happen on their own,” Sir Jeffrey persisted. “Changing them for their own sake is not to be desired.” He stated it as if it was a known fact.
Handsome though he admittedly was, this man had the heart and soul of a squire. Any change, even the moving of a fence post mattered to them. Unless, of course, they had instigated the move, after years of careful consideration. His time in the army must have increased Sir Jeffrey’s rigidity of mind. Not an admirable quality, in Adrian’s opinion.
“I accept change when it is beneficial,” he drawled, deliberately refusing to allow the man to rile him.
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