“Pour yourself a glass of that claret you favor too much.”
Yes, for once Mrs. Hazelwood’s advice struck a note with Beth. She stumbled to the sideboard. The strong, lush scent of roses hit her. She glanced to her left and saw a vase filled nearly to tipping over with perfect pink roses. She suspected the source of those flowers.
She didn’t want to think about it.
She poured herself some claret then gulped it down in three swallows. It hit her stomach like fire. But she liked the burn. Just like she’d liked the hard riding. It distracted her from the memory of his hands holding her down on the bed, thrusting into her. Dominating her. Taking all she had to give.
She poured another half-portion of wine, watching the rich burgundy fluid slosh in the glass as her hand shook holding the stem.
“Take care with that. You know how little it takes to make you intoxicated.” Mrs. Hazelwood’s gravely tone barely penetrated Beth’s thoughts.
He would be gone for weeks.
Weeks until he would be hers again.
Weeks.
A sob rose in her throat and she swallowed it down with wine then compressed her lips and wiped them with her sleeve.
“Now that is an elegant gesture,” Mrs. Hazelwood said in a dry tone.
Beth ignored her, still trying to force down the violent emotions swirling within her. So he would be gone. She should have been relieved. But hunger consumed her. Hunger for the sight of his face, the feel of his body, the smell of his scent.
And that was what frightened her most of all and had sent her running this morning. Running and running with nowhere to go. Nowhere to escape from herself and her needs and emotions.
“You will not be able to drink claret at the wedding.”
“Oh?” She took a gasp of air, trying to aid the slowing of her heart. “Won’t I?”
“A polite lady drinks punch or ratafia.”
“I despise ratafia.” Beth cast a wary glance at the roses and set her glass down on the side table.
“Ladies do not drink to excess or become intoxicated.”
“Yes, of course they don’t.” Beth was trying to calm herself yet her heart continued to pound. The longer she stared at those roses, the drier her mouth and throat seemed to become. With a determined jerk of her head, she tore her gaze from the flowers and poured herself more claret then tossed half the glass back. Pleasant warmth spread through her, softening the harsher edges of the morning.
“You also will not be able to ride like a wild savage in New York. You shouldn’t have done so here.”
Beth shrugged. New York was the last thing on her mind this morning. She was doing all she could to survive from one moment to the next.
Weeks until she saw him again…
A flash of his face above hers entered her mind; she could feel his hands holding her down. She’d wanted him to do that. She’d wanted him to assert some control over her. It had excited her. She didn’t understand it now.
She downed the rest of her claret.
“Those roses are from Mr. Sexton.” Mrs. Hazelwood’s words startled Beth out of her thoughts.
She set her glass down again and turned her attention to the vase of roses. “Are they?”
Mrs. Hazelwood chuckled. “Don’t be saucy with me, you wicked girl. Who else would have sent them? Do you think I have an ardent admirer? There’s a note there.”
Beth started and noticed the folded cream colored vellum lying next to the vase.
“Well, go on, open it.”
Beth snatched the note up and tore the wax seal. Her heart began to hammer in her chest all over again. She folded the letter over as if it were a guilty secret.
“Well, my girl, what does Mr. Sexton say?”
I am sorry, my love, the blame for our discord is all my doing. I’ll never censure you for your past again.
The words had burnt her eyes. An apology from her proud husband-to-be. God. Oh God, it was the very last thing she had expected. She wanted to run away from Mrs. Hazelwood’s curious eyes. Run all the way up to her chamber in the attic and…and what? Hug herself and stare into space with the sheer shock? Dance for joy? Strip all her clothes off and touch herself until she came over and over at the memory of his body, pressing hers down, mastering her?
Maybe all three.
“What does he say?” Mrs. Hazelwood repeated as if to a child.
“Oh, nothing much. He says he hopes the next weeks pass quickly.” Beth stumbled over the half-lie as she stuffed the vellum into her pocket. She walked to the settee opposite Mrs. Hazelwood and sat. The chamber seemed all floaty and she couldn’t focus on any one thing, her eyes jumping from the mantel with its mahogany clock to the tea table and then the window, where fat drops of rain had begun to fall.
Was this apology such a victory? So, he felt regret. Grey was obviously capable of deep possessive feelings towards her. Yet did he truly want her as a wife or had it simply been the only way he could possess her beauty and body for his own? How would he feel once in New York, amidst his friends and family, when he presented the bastard-child as his bride?
“Mr. Sexton has deposited two hundred and fifty thousand dollars into an account in your name. You are a wealthy woman now and you haven’t even married him yet. It is certainly a testament to the power of a woman’s beauty and a man’s ability to be swayed.”
Two hundred and—Beth jerked back to face Mrs. Hazelwood. “What?”
The sharp, ice-blue eyes narrowed slightly. “I never suspected you were so cunning.”
The woman’s words landed on Beth like a rain of needles. She sucked in her breath.
All the elation of just a moment past drained from her body, leaving her limp. Her throat began to burn and she blinked hard against tears. She could never remember the woman speaking so brusquely to her. “Cunning?”
“You think you’ve gained the whole, wide world, I can see that. But I don’t think you realize what you’re getting into here, my girl. You be wary. He set his first wife aside and she was a de Lange.”
The firm note in Mrs. Hazelwood’s voice gave Beth pause. “He says she left him. To return to her father’s house.”
A slight smile curved the woman’s lips as she drew her needle once more through the cloth. “Did he really tell you that?”
“You’re implying it isn’t true?”
“It seems rather unlikely Juliana de Lange would have run home to her papa of her own volition. She was a grown woman.”
Beth felt her mouth drop open. She stared at the old woman. But Mrs. Hazelwood merely drew her needle through the cloth once more.
“But Mr. Sexton was only nineteen—she was surely younger.”
Mrs. Hazelwood glanced over the top of her spectacles. “She was twenty-six years old.”
“I can scarcely believe it.”
“Oh yes, she was twenty-six. Old enough to be settled into her skin and know her own mind. Goodness, she’d been on the shelf for years. She was such a pretty girl, petite and small-boned like you, and no one could understand why she had not been wed long before that.”
Beth stifled a gasp. She’d had no idea that Grey’s wife had been so much older.
“Well, by waiting to wed, she gained herself the hand of the most eligible bachelor of that time and place. She became Mrs. Asahel de Grijs Sexton before he even appeared on the social season. Quite a coup for her—or so I am sure she thought.” Mrs. Hazelwood laid her embroidery hoop down, frowned and wagged her finger. “He made her unhappy. Everyone could see it—she changed from such a gay, bright-eyed young lady into a shadow of herself.”
Indignant for Grey, Beth stiffened. “I don’t think Mr. Sexton would lie to me.”
Mrs. Hazelwood’s face relaxed into a placid smile and she took up her hoop, pushing the needle through the taut cloth. The sound seemed unusually loud to Beth’s ears. “Well, dear, the point is, he has already put one marriage aside. That’s something unthinkable for a gentleman. The second time would
prove a little easier, I fear. ”
At Mrs. Hazelwood’s eerie echoing of Joshua’s warnings, a thread of unease pulled through Beth’s belly.
“And Juliana was a sweet, biddable young woman.” Again, Mrs. Hazelwood looked up over her spectacles, her eyes sharp. “You’re something a little short of that. Yes, you had better take care.”
* * * *
Chilly night breezes caressed her face. Beth closed her eyes and inhaled the rich scents of the roses and hydrangeas from Mrs. Hazelwood’s garden. She was spending her last night before her wedding to Grey in her old childhood bedchamber. But she couldn’t sleep, so she had come out to the garden.
Last evening, she’d received Grey’s terse message. On his way back to Philadelphia, unavoidable business had necessitated a detour in Baltimore, but he would arrive in the morning. Their wedding was tomorrow at noon, yet he’d arranged business on the way.
Her chest constricted, forcing her to take a slow, ragged breath. Well, that wasn’t the worst. This was the very first letter she’d received from him since he’d departed.
Her three silly little letters—filled with babble about how much she missed him—must have annoyed him. How insipid, pouring out her feelings like that! But at the time her longing for his presence had been such an aching, visceral pain she’d been unable to hold back.
Yet it was plain to see—she was the absolute last priority in his life. Maybe he’d even developed second thoughts.
Serious second thoughts.
Her stomach cramped and she laid a hand over it. She’d barely been able to eat a bite for days now and was almost constantly lightheaded with lack of nourishment and a little too much claret.
A squeak of rusty metal hinges brought her back to the present. Her stomach dropped.
No, not tonight. Surely not…
Boots crunched on the gravel path. Aching welled in her throat. Nostalgia? Regret? She didn’t know.
She looked up. “Good evening, Dr. Wade.”
He grinned at her and quickened his pace. “It’s half past two in the morning,” he reproached her as he sat beside her on the stone bench. He touched her muslin-covered thigh. “And you’re out here in your dainty nightdress.”
She threw a scathing glance at his hand. “Take your hand from my person.”
He frowned and removed his hand. “Night air is not good for the lungs and you’re just begging for a quinsy, my girl.”
“Is that so, doctor? And how did you know I’d be here?”
“I was walking home from a late call to a patient and I saw your lantern’s light.”
She arched a brow.
He sighed. “All right, I admit it. I suspected you would be wakeful, so I decided to come by. I hear your merchant prince has yet to arrive.”
“He’s due to arrive in the morning.”
Joshua’s sensual mouth quirked. “When, a quarter till noon?”
Beth grit her teeth for a moment.
Joshua chuckled softly. The sound carried on the rustle of the wind through the leaves of the trees. It resurrected sensual memories. Memories made here in this garden after midnight. Gooseflesh rose all over her and she had to suppress a shiver.
“He had some pressing business in Baltimore.”
He chuckled, more richly this time.
She flashed him a glare.
He gave her knee a pat. “Oh, you had best accustom yourself to it, my fine lady. There will always be some business matter. I know his type of gentleman. Christ, I spend my days treating the wives of cold-blooded, business-minded men like him for their nerves and migraines.”
She hated him more than ever for echoing the very concerns that had kept her up thus far tonight. But she tried to ignore the anxiety coiling in her belly. Tried to put her focus on her anger at Joshua. In fact, she was almost grateful for the distraction he provided from her thoughts.
He was studying her with his dark crimson brows drawn tightly together. “A merchant—a merchant?” His voice rang with disdain. “How could you, Beth? I thought you possessed of more refinement, more sensitivity—certainly more intelligence.”
“Ha! You’re a fine one to talk. I am sure you do treat those worthy, good wives very thoroughly.”
His thick lashes glinted like darkest wine in the lamplight as they swept over his eyes. “It’s never like it was with you, Beth.”
She snorted. “You insult me to even mention such a thing.”
“It’s hard to be merely polite when the very scent of your skin fills my mind with memories.” His voice became richer, a bit husky and he bent closer. “The night air, scented with flowers, the balmy breeze and the sounds of the night creatures, the moonlight, you cant tell me that you don’t remember.”
She pulled away and curled her upper lip. “Won’t your wife be missing you?”
“She sleeps alone in her chamber and I never…I have never disturbed her.”
For a moment, she gaped at him. Then gladness, terrible and swift, spread through her. So he spent his nights in a cold bed, alone and aching? Good. He deserved no less. She laughed, dragging the sound out into a long, low taunt. “Oh, that is doing it far, far too brown. Even for you, Dr. Wade. You actually expect me to believe that you’ve never fucked your dear, sweet little wife?”
He flinched. “Don’t… Don’t ever use that word again…not in the same sentence with her.”
She laughed again, this time in the wicked, practiced way she knew drove men insane with desire—and this man in particular. “Who taught me that word?”
He gave her a hard look. “How I hate what you have become.” He clapped a hand to his neck. “God, the mosquitoes are out for blood tonight. Why the devil must you sit out here?”
“They leave me alone.”
“Annie felt as pushed into marriage as I did and she was reluctant at first. I gladly gave her time.” He frowned. “She’s like a sister and I’ve never felt the least physical attraction to her. We’ve settled into a civil, polite pattern of living that does not include sharing each other’s beds—or bodies.”
How she had tormented herself, picturing him sated and cozily tucked in his wife’s bed, while she had burnt alone in hers. He took a deep breath. “I have made such a mess of everything. I have such a talent for it. From the moment of Annie’s birth, it seemed, my mother made it clear she expected us to marry.” He laughed, a hollow, bitter sound. “She is a very persuasive woman. I didn’t know how to say no and, because of that, I have deserved every moment of torment you’ve given me since I wed. But you deserved none of the pain I put you through. I will seek an annulment.”
Was she still in bed? Dreaming? Having some bizarre nightmare? “My God.”
He frowned. “What?” he said, as if he hadn’t just knocked her whole sense of reality off its axis.
“You’ve gone insane. You don’t realize what you are saying.”
“On the contrary—for the first time in years, I am sure of what I am saying.”
Her mouth dropped open. He couldn’t be sincere. “And what if it makes a scandal? You’ve been wed to her a while now. Who is going to believe you’ve never shared her bed? People will say you’ve abandoned her. What if it ruins your fine reputation? Even you couldn’t charm your way out of that. Your lucrative practice would be finished.”
“Have you even been listening to me?” His voice rang with frustration. “I made a mistake—I want to make up for it. I don’t care what price I have to pay.”
“What about your wife? You’re going to ruin her reputation too. Are there no limits to your selfishness?”
“If I am branded the culprit, the selfish one whom no woman could bear living with, Annie will weather it all just fine.”
Her breath was coming very hard, very fast, making her words gush out. “Your mother will disown you. But what will you do? Live off your inheritance until it runs out?”
His elegant, claret- colored brows drew together. “You shouldn’t even need to ask.”
&nb
sp; “Indiana.”
He nodded. “In Indiana, they will be so happy to have a skilled doctor they won’t care about such trivial things.”
His eyes shone brightly with idealism. He looked so boyish. Still young enough to believe in his dreams—dreams he had once converted even a city-bred girl like herself to believe. Remembered fondness softened her heart, but, goodness, she felt old, so old in comparison to the eighteen-year-old girl he’d seduced.
“You are really prepared to give up your comfortable life?” she asked.
“I am dying here. I long for my life to have meaning, but you—” His voice broke and the skin grew tight across his cheekbones. “Everyone thinks I am merely dreaming, that I cannot stand up to hardship and hard work. You were the only one who”—he coughed—“believed in me.”
His eyes glistened in the lantern’s light. Sadness, regret and anger rose in her, an uncontrollable explosion. How dare he come here on the eve of her wedding and tell her all of this?
Her hand shot out and struck his cheek, the sound echoing sharply in the garden. “Get control over yourself, Joshua!”
He gripped his cheek and stared at her dumbly, as if the act had yet to sink in. “I am twenty-eight years old. If I am ever to be my own man, it’s now or never.” He took her hand. “I am going, no question about it. However, am I going alone or are you coming with me?”
“C—coming with you?” She struggled against rising rage. How dare he insert himself into her life like this, on this night of all nights?
“Yes—I want you to come with me as my wife.”
It felt as if the stone bench she was sitting on had dropped several leagues all at once. He couldn’t have just said that. “Your wife?”
“Of course. Why else would I bother to dissolve my marriage?”
What she wouldn’t once have given to hear this melodramatic declaration. She’d dreamt for years of something exactly like this. Yes, honestly, pathetic as it was, she had. Yet now that he’d said it, coldness settled over her like a blanket of new-fallen snow.
“I hardly know what to say, this is so sudden,” she said with heavy sarcasm.
Wild, Wicked and Wanton: A Hot Historical Romance Bundle Page 27
