“Nothing,” she said, her voice bright as she looked away and reached for a plate of cakes. “Try one of these, they’re really good.”
He stared at her. It had been there last night too. Only for a second, so brief he thought he’d imagined it, but he hadn’t. Damn it all. She was still keeping secrets. Still hiding from him.
“Damn the blasted cakes, Archie,” he said, shaking his head. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
He knew she was going to lie, to pretend
“Ranleigh—” she began, a note of protest in her voice.
“No. For starters, it’s Guy, and for second, when I came in you were the picture of misery.” His heart ached as the same emotion crept into it. “Tell me why. Did I do something wrong? Do you… do you regret last night?”
“No!”
His heart eased just a little at the obvious sincerity of her denial, but still, it didn’t change anything.
He sat down and reached across the table, taking her hand and clasping it between both of his. “Archie, darling, this won’t work unless you’re honest with me. Here I am, bursting with happiness and expecting—or at least hoping—to find you of the same mind.”
She swallowed and gave a nervous sounding laugh. The smile that followed was far from reassuring. “I don’t regret a moment of last night, it was… it was joyous and heavenly, and I shall never forget it. You didn’t do a thing wrong.”
There was something in her words that troubled him, but he couldn’t quite grasp what. “But you are not happy, Archie.”
“I am,” she said, the tears in her eyes and the way her voice caught at the words proving her a liar.
“Darling!” he exclaimed, at a loss to explain her obvious distress. At his urging she moved, sitting on his lap and burying her face in his neck. For a moment or two he just held her, rubbing slow circles on her back while she steadied herself.
“Damn you, Ranleigh,” she mumbled into his neck. “I never cry. Never. You’ve turned me into a blasted watering pot.”
“Why?” he demanded, stricken now. “I’d rather cut out my own heart than hurt you, Archie. Surely you know this?”
“Oh, stop it, you wretched man,” she said, hitting his shoulder with her fist and sniffing harder. “Stop being so damned wonderful. It’s killing me.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, too bewildered to know what to do or say, holding her closer. “I would never do anything to make you happy, Archie. You need only say. If… if it’s last night that is worrying you then, please, don’t. I know I ought not have taken advantage and I’m sorry, but I’m going to get a special licence. We can be married at once, so you need not feel any concern—”
“No.”
Ranleigh paused, a little startled by the finality of that one word. “Well, if you prefer to wait, or marry in church then….”
She shook her head and a sliver of unease worked under his skin.
“When, then?” he asked, trying to silence the panic that was building with a sense of inevitability. “Tell me when and where and how, and—”
“I can’t marry you.”
He stilled, doing his best to keep calm and not bombard her with questions, though his heart was beating too hard and too fast. “Can’t, or… or won’t?” he asked, not wanting to pose the question at all, for he was too afraid of the answer.
“Can’t.”
The tightness in his chest eased just a little. “Last night,” he began cautiously, aware he was treading dangerous ground. “I… I wasn’t your first.”
She shook her head, looking so utterly wretched that his heart hurt. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, cupping her face with his hand and forcing her to look at him. “If you love me, I don’t give a damn what happened before me, but is… is that the reason?”
“Yes and… no,” she said as one large tear rolled down her cheek. Ranleigh fought for patience, wishing she’d just give him a simple answer, but he understood Archie well enough to realise there might not be one.
“You’re married?” he guessed, hearing terror behind the question and hardly daring to move a muscle.
She was quiet for so long that, when she finally answered, the breath left him all in a rush.
“Widowed.”
“Thank God.” He closed his eyes and sent a silent prayer to the heavens. “I haven’t the least problem with marrying a widow,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile. “So—”
“No!” She leapt to her feet, her hands going to her hair and clutching at it as if she might pull it out at the roots. “I can’t,” she said, choked and fighting back tears as she spoke, her face the picture of misery. “I can’t marry you, and I can’t explain. We can have this, like last night. If you want me like this then… then I’m yours, until you marry, at least. But I can’t be your wife and I can’t explain it, and… and… I can’t do this.”
She sobbed and ran for the door, snatching it open as Ranleigh moved to follow her.
“Archie!”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Please, not… not now. I’ll come tomorrow, I promise, only let me go now. I… I can’t—”
Helpless to stop her in the face of such desperation to quit his company, Ranleigh watched her go.
For a while he just stood still, too stunned to move in either direction. After a time, he returned to the breakfast table. The last thing he wanted was to leave her alone. He’d wait for Ponsonby to get back, or possibly for Archie to calm down and come back downstairs, though he wasn’t holding his breath.
Though he had little appetite, he forced himself to drink a cup of coffee and eat some of the cakes Archie had offered him, more for something to do than for any other reason. They were no doubt as delicious as she’d told him, but they tasted of dust and stuck in his throat.
He just couldn’t figure it out. She loved him. He felt certain of it. It also made no sense that she had been married before. It was true that she’d not been a virgin—at least she hadn’t bled—but in every other sense he would have sworn she was not as experienced as a married woman ought to be. There was simply no evidence of experience in bed past anything instinctive and he didn’t think for a moment that Archie would feign innocence to soothe his ego at not being the first. Neither was she shy, not after an initial blush at her own nakedness. He frowned, frustrated by his lack of understanding.
Why wouldn’t she marry him?
Archie was no coward. In fact, he thought she was likely the bravest person he’d ever met. So, what was stopping her?
She’d said she was widowed, and he could imagine her husband’s family might disapprove of her way of life. He snorted at that. Most people would disapprove, so it was more than likely. Yet, if that was the case, surely they would be happy for her to change her name, and he was more than happy to pay them off until they were bloody happy, if it came to it.
Ranleigh frowned, remembering the depths of her distress, and some instinct told him it was more than this. Archie was hiding something, something she wasn’t going to confide in him and, whatever it was, it stood in the way of their future happiness, and that… that he could not have.
A sound at the front of the house jolted him out of his thoughts and he rose just as Erasmus Ponsonby walked into the breakfast room. He was a big man, certainly as big as Ranleigh, and rather more heavily built. His eyes narrowed as he looked around and found no sign of Archie.
“She won’t marry me,” Ranleigh said in a rush, in no particular hurry to get his nose broken when he was doing his best to get everything right.
Ponsonby scowled, considering Ranleigh for a moment. “Did she tell you why?”
Ranleigh shook his head. “No. She says she’s widowed, and I feel like that’s part of the reason, but she won’t tell me any more. She says she can’t marry me, not that she doesn’t want to, but I can’t fix the problem if she doesn’t tell me—” He broke off, aware that his voice was becoming a little strident with frustration. Ponsonby watched him closely as
he took a deep breath to steady himself before rubbing his face with his hand. “What do you know that I don’t?” he demanded. “She says she loves me, she says she’ll be my lover, but that’s not what I want. I want her with me always, just as she is. I’d not change her, I’d never ask that. I don’t want to, damn it. Why won’t she trust me?”
“I’ve long been aware that Archie has secrets,” Ponsonby said, a little hesitant as he admitted as much. “But I’m afraid I don’t know either. I doubt anyone but Archie does.”
He frowned and sat down at the breakfast table and Ranleigh resumed his own seat, allowing the man to think. Ponsonby was a good friend to Archie, he knew that, and it might be that he’d not give him any information that broke her confidence. Ranleigh could understand that. Yet he needed to know how to help her.
“The only thing I do know,” Ponsonby began, as Ranleigh held his breath. “They were not married for long, and she was afraid of her husband, mortally afraid. I think she ran away. She has… nightmares.”
Ranleigh drew in a deep breath, his fists clenching. “He hurt her?”
Ponsonby shrugged, but the look in his eyes was such that Ranleigh didn’t need an answer. Perhaps Archie hadn’t told him as much, but he’d read between the lines.
“It’s a good job he’s already dead,” Ranleigh growled, a little taken aback by the surge of anger rising inside him, the need to hit something, or preferably someone. Repeatedly. He’d never been a violent man, never had the kind of temper that led him into fights, but rather the kind of mind and disposition that would diffuse an altercation before it began. Not now. In this moment, he felt positively murderous.
“Yes, I have thought much the same on the few occasions I’ve managed to draw any information from her.”
“She wants to marry me,” Ranleigh said, facing Ponsonby. “I know she does, but something is stopping her. We could be happy together,” he said, doing his utmost to keep his voice even, as the depth of emotions he was experiencing were unnerving enough without having this hulking Scot witnessing them too. “I know it won’t be plain sailing, but nothing with Archie ever is.” He gave a laugh then, which sounded just a shade too close to desperation for comfort. “I’d face anything to be with her.”
To his surprise Ponsonby’s face softened, his eyes growing bright. “You don’t know how long I’ve prayed for someone to discover her. Archie is wonderful, such a special person. She deserves someone equally special, someone who appreciates just how unique she is.” He held out his hand to Ranleigh and, feeling a touch dazed, Ranleigh took it. “I’ll do whatever I can to help,” he promised.
Ranleigh gave a slightly startled laugh. “Thank you, Ponsonby,” he said, meaning it. “I think I need all the help I can get.”
“Yes. So do I,” Ponsonby mused without a hint of sarcasm. “And I think you’d best call me Erasmus.”
Chapter 17
“Wherein the truth will set you free.”
The next day, Archie went to have dinner with Ranleigh, at his invitation. She went partly because she had promised to see him once she was calmer, and partly because Erasmus had threatened to chop her into bite-sized pieces if she didn’t. Rupert had even offered to dig the holes and, bearing in mind how much he detested physical exertion, she’d figured it was best to go before the serious nagging began.
She’d bitten her nails to the quick before she’d even reached Mayfair.
Ranleigh was kind, and welcoming, and kept his distance, watching her with the same nervous anxiety he might a wild creature he was trying to get close to.
The meal was sumptuous, but the atmosphere felt strained. Courses came and went, with Ranleigh doing his best to keep the stilted conversation moving, but they both knew this was simply a prelude. He was waiting until after dinner to talk about the reason she wouldn’t marry him. Archie drank too much and veered between verbal diarrhoea, chattering about nothing, and then stony silence. He was going to want reasons, and they’d need to be good ones. She knew how bloody stubborn he was. If he thought she was merely saving his good reputation, there would be hell to pay, but then pay it she must, for she couldn’t tell him the truth.
They retired to the drawing room after the dinner, and Archie did her best not to swallow the port Ranleigh had given her in one go and ask for another. Her nerves were leaping, and she didn’t know how much more she could take.
“Am I an ogre?” he asked, his voice mild as he turned to look at her.
Archie avoided his eye and moved to stand by the fire. “Hardly.”
“Do you think me judgemental, then? Do you think I wouldn’t understand your reasons for refusing me?”
Archie closed her eyes and released a shaky breath. “I think you are the most understanding and least judgemental man I’ve ever known.”
She felt rather than saw him move and, when she opened her eyes again, he was standing close behind her. He set his drink on the mantel and laid a hand on the back of her neck. It was a warm weight, heavy and reassuring, just like him. Someone to rely on. Oh God, how she wanted to rely on him, to let him make it all better. If only he could.
“Why won’t you trust me?” he asked, his voice low.
“I do. I do trust you,” she said, pleading in her voice. Oh, why wouldn’t he just accept that this was all she could give him? What an idiotic question. He’d not give up because he loved her and he wanted her to be happy, with him. If the situation were reversed, she’d not give up either. She knew that.
“Then tell me the truth.”
“I’ll destroy you,” she said. That much at least was true. “And me, too.”
He took a step closer, so close she could feel the warmth of his words against her skin as he spoke, feel the shape of them flutter against her.
“Can’t you face it?” he asked, and there was sorrow in the question but no judgement, only understanding. God, wasn’t that a knife to her heart? “Is the thought of public scrutiny and everything that would go with it too much for you?”
No! Archie wanted to scream it at the top of her lungs. She’d face anything to be with him, anything at all—even the hangman’s noose, which had followed her for so long—if it wouldn’t destroy him too, both publicly and personally. There was only so much scandal a person could weather, and that was if you faced it together. To leave him alone to bear that….
No.
“Yes,” she said, feeling her stomach twist at the lie. She knew it would hurt him. Archie turned to look him in the eye and forced herself to say it with conviction, never turning away from him. “I can’t face it. I can’t face everyone knowing about me, knowing about us. They’ll laugh at us and make us a mockery. I can’t do that. I’m sorry, and I don’t want children either, not ever. So, no heirs for you. You see, it won’t work.”
Ranleigh stared at her, for so long and so hard that her skin prickled with anxiety. Then he let out a breath.
“You’re lying,” he said, his relief palpable.
Archie stared at him in shock. She’d been convincing; she was certain of it.
“No, I’m not,” she protested.
Ranleigh shrugged. “I don’t believe you.”
“Damn you, Ranleigh,” she said, as frustrated with him as ever. “I’m telling you the truth. I can’t marry you and you need an heir, so you can’t be with me. It can’t work. I’m willing to stay for as long as you’re happy to remain unmarried, but after that—” She stopped speaking a little abruptly, aware that her voice was quavering.
Without another word, Ranleigh plucked the glass from her hand and placed it beside his on the mantel. Before she could open her mouth to protest, he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
She ought to protest, she thought. Perhaps.
Maybe.
In a bit….
Oh.
Kissing Ranleigh was just… heavenly. It was impossible to think when he kissed her, likely why he’d chosen that moment to do it.
As it really was impossible
to think, she gave up trying. Instead, she slid her hands under his coat, revelling in the warmth of his body. He pulled her closer, tugging her hips firmly against his, and she sighed into his mouth as her body reacted. Before him, her one experience of the act had brought fear, pain, and mortification, and she’d assumed that it was as people said: women didn’t enjoy it. Nice women, that was. Selina had disabused her of that notion a long time ago, but Archie had still not believed it to be everything her friend had assured her it could be, but Selina had gotten it from Dolly Dashton, and if anyone should know…. Admittedly, the high flier would certainly not be classed as a ‘nice’ woman by the ton. Once Selina had married, however, she had all but crowed I told you so, and confirmed Dolly’s words in full.
So, Archie had learned, and it was hardly a shock to accept, that her husband had been an unpleasant, selfish bastard, and Ranleigh was as different to him as oil was to vinegar. He was kind, patient, and gentle, and oh, God, she loved him. She wanted him, too, wanted his body close, as close as they could get… and with an urgent desire that was utterly consuming.
She reached one hand up to clasp his neck, pulling his head down as she kissed him with something close to desperation. She wanted him. Wanted so much, so badly.
“I don’t care if he’s busy. He’ll see me… Oh.”
The shrill voice and the remonstrations of a furious butler reached their ears a second too late as the door swung open.
Archie went to leap away from Ranleigh, but he held her in place, his arms about her as firm as ever.
Lady Lydia Fanshaw was every bit as beautiful as Archie remembered, and her eyes—on seeing Ranleigh with Archie in his arms—were wide and shocked. Archie realised at once just how it looked, and what the woman believed she was seeing.
“Well, well, Ranleigh. This explains a great deal,” she said with a sneer. “No wonder you didn’t welcome my advances. I was clearly barking up the wrong tree.”
Duke and Duplicity (Rogues and Gentlemen Book 15) Page 18
