Heartless

by Mary Balogh

  Oh, but she had. She had.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “you would care to explain.” The pleasantness of his tone was more frightening than open anger would have been. There seemed to be something steely behind it.

  Explain? How could she explain? She could not explain that one fact without explaining everything. The simple truth would make no sense at all outside the context of the whole of it. Ravishment would have been easy to explain. Ravishment could stand alone. But it had not been ravishment—not really. It had been worse. More cold-blooded. She had never understood why he had not simply ravished her. No, she could not tell everything—or anything. It was an impossibility.

  “Let me make it easier for you,” he said. “Did it happen once or several times?”

  She stared at him. Once? Not even once.

  “With one man or with several?” His voice was softer.

  She wished he would yell at her. She wanted suddenly to scream at him to yell at her. When the silence stretched, she wanted to rush from the room and from the house in search of air. She was suffocating. She continued to look directly into his eyes.

  “Did you love him?” His voice was almost a whisper. And when she still did not answer him, “Do you love him?”

  She thought of Sir Lovatt Blaydon standing beside that bed, talking soothingly to her while they tied her wrists to the bedposts, the man and the woman, and then her ankles, one to each of the posts at the foot of the bed, and while the woman lifted her petticoat and her shift to her waist, folding them neatly as if it mattered that they not crease. Love? Love? Had there been a moment in her life more devoid of love?

  Her husband’s face blurred before her eyes suddenly and she realized in humiliation that her eyes had filled with tears.

  He got slowly to his feet a few moments later and walked across the room to stand at the window, his back to her. She bit her upper lip hard, willing the tears to return to their source. He came back toward her after what seemed like an hour and was in reality perhaps two minutes. He did not go back behind the desk. He came to stand in front of her chair.

  “I will not condemn you,” he said. “I suppose that a woman’s sexual urges can be as insistent as a man’s and that when a woman is past the age of twenty and family circumstances make it difficult for her to marry and satisfy those urges in the usual manner, she might be tempted to take comfort where it can be found. Especially if there is some modicum of love involved. I will not condemn or insist that you answer my questions. You may keep your secrets. But I will say this, madam. Look at me.”

  She had closed her eyes and kept them closed. She opened them now and looked into his. She wished he would take a step or two back.

  “You are my wife,” he said. “You belong to me. I cannot command your affections, but I can and will demand that your body be my exclusive property. While we both live, mine will be the only body to penetrate yours from this moment on, mine the only seed to enter your womb. Be clear on this, madam. Do not mistake my decision not to punish what is past and what preceded our marriage as weakness. You will disobey this command at your own peril. You would be punished. Your lover would die. Anyone who knows me would be able to assure you that I do not make idle threats.”

  For the first time it occurred to her that there was a great icy coldness behind his eyes. She gazed at him, tense and terrified. And yet a part of her mind was rebelling. They were all the same, she thought bitterly. Men were all the same. Power was everything to them and the need to possess, to control. She had thought this man different. She had been foolish. He was no different from Sir Lovatt Blaydon. And yet something in her screamed a protest at the comparison. It was not true. It could not be true.

  But was there no man in this world with a heart? Yet that, too, was unfair. She had refused to answer his questions—she had been unable to answer them. He had a right to be a great deal angrier than he was.

  “You have been silent long enough, madam,” he said. “I will hear from you now, if you please.”

  “Yesterday,” she said, her voice blurting far too loudly. She swallowed. “Yesterday, I made vows to you, your grace, and to God in the hearing of my family and yours. I do not make vows that I have no intention of keeping.”

  “Very well,” he said after a short silence. “We will say no more on the matter, then. We will proceed with the marriage we contracted yesterday.”

  She closed her eyes tightly again. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  She did not know if her marriage had been saved or if her soul had been destroyed—again. Only time would tell, she supposed. But at least he was not putting her aside, publicly shaming her after just one day of marriage. She did not know yet if she was glad or sorry. She had seen steel in his eyes and had heard it in his voice. She had been frightened of him, terrified of him, of this man she had thought quite unthreatening just a few days ago.

  Perhaps after all he had not been making love to her last night. Perhaps, having made his discovery at the start, he had been taking her as he would a whore. It was a possibility to chill her to the very heart.

  And yet—we will proceed with the marriage we contracted yesterday. He had said those words to her.

  • • •

  He could not accept the fact that he had been hurt by the knowledge that she loved the man who had had her virginity. Hurt? In what way? He had made himself invulnerable to pain.

  He had had to get to his feet and walk away from her to the window when he had seen the lost, deeply pained look in her eyes, which usually sparkled so brightly, and when the tears had welled in them.

  She loved the man whoever he was, God damn his soul. Her face and her unshed tears had spoken far louder than words could have done.

  It was only his pride that had been hurt, not his heart. He had no heart. He knew, conceited as the admission was, that any one of his French lovers and any one of the countless women who would have been his lovers if he had given the slightest encouragement, would have jumped at the chance to be his wife. He had chosen a brightly happy woman, a woman of purity, and he had been duped. Not only had she been touched, but her heart was given elsewhere. Or so her reaction to his question strongly suggested. She had refused to speak.

  He did not care about her heart, he told himself as he stood at the window, his back to her and to the room. But by God, no other man would ever touch her body again. Not unless he was prepared to make it his final act in this life.

  And so he walked back across the room to tell her just that. And he realized something else as she looked up into his eyes when he commanded her to do so. He realized that the smiles, the sparkle, the flirtatious ways had all been an act. He realized that she was a woman who had worn a mask during the week of their acquaintance.

  Or perhaps not. Perhaps he was overreacting. He was not even sure why he hoped he was mistaken since he had just established his ownership of her and she had accepted reality.

  He turned to walk back around the desk and sat down behind it again. He had felt the need when they had come from the breakfast room to set some distance between them, some formal distance. The width of a desk was impersonal and indicated a symbolic separation between master and servant.

  She was not his servant. She was his wife.

  “Anna,” he said. She was looking steadily back at him, her face pale, no trace of her earlier smiles remaining. “’Twould be as well if there were plain speaking between us. There already has been some despite the secret you have refused to tell and I have refused to insist upon sharing. Let there be more so that we may begin our marriage with no misunderstandings, no false expectations. Tell me why you married me and I will tell you why I married you. The full truth even if it may seem hurtful. Tell me.”

  He thought she was going to remain silent again. He sat waiting. This was something he would insist upon. If they left the room now and went their separate ways for th
e rest of the day, they might never be able to establish a working relationship. But she spoke finally without further prompting.

  “I am five-and-twenty years old,” she said. “Since my mother’s death, and even before it to a degree, I have been mistress of the home into which I was born. No longer. My brother is now master there and will be taking home a bride later this year. I preferred to marry than be a spinster sister in their home. I had a chance to marry you, a man of high rank and comfortable fortune. I took the chance.”

  And did you connive at it? he wanted to ask her. Was that what the flirtation at Lady Diddering’s ball had been all about? But did it matter?

  “That is all?” he asked.

  She hesitated. “My sisters,” she said. “I spoke with you about them before. But I did not mention that my youngest sister is—is . . . My brother does not have the gift of handling her though he is fond of her, I believe. And his betrothed has expressed her concern over having Emily live in her home.”

  “What is the matter with Emily?” he asked.

  “She is a deaf-mute,” she said. “It is difficult to communicate with her. And she—she wanders. She does not behave as other young girls behave.”

  “You married me partly so that you could give her a different home, then?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He wondered what else she had kept from him, this uncomplicated woman he had thought he was marrying, this woman he had thought he could trust. A lover whom she loved but for some reason had been unable to marry—perhaps the man was already married. A deaf-mute sister. Did she have any more secrets?

  He waited for more and wondered if he could ever now trust this woman—his wife—to tell him the full truth.

  “I have been away from my home and family for ten years,” he told her when she said no more. “I had no intentions of ever returning to either, even after the death of my brother two years ago presented me with the unwelcome burden of my title. But responsibilities cannot be so easily ignored, it seems. Problems are clamoring at me in the form of every one of my family members and my chief property, Bowden Abbey. It seems altogether likely that I am going to have to go there sooner or later. When one is a duke and has all the responsibilities that come with the title, one can no longer follow inclination even in one’s personal life. I needed a wife.”

  He had intended to be honest, not brutal. When she lowered her eyes for a moment before raising them again, he realized what he had implied by his words. But they were spoken now, and they were the truth. If he had for a brief moment imagined himself in love with her, then the feeling was gone without trace.

  “It was desirable to choose a bride of no lower rank than earl’s daughter,” he said. “I told you before that fortune was of no importance to me. I have two, one that I made for myself, and one that I inherited. You were recommended to me by my uncle as a woman of suitable rank. I did not see any point in looking farther.”

  Her eyes dropped before his.

  “It is not a good situation for brothers to be heirs to one another once they have passed a certain age,” he said. “It has become clear to me that fathering sons is my main duty to my position. I needed a wife to bear those sons for me. If I prove capable and you fertile, I will be keeping you with child with suitable intervals between for the recovery of your full health until there are at least two sons in our nursery. Daughters will not be unwelcome, but I will want sons.”

  “Yes.” She was still not looking into his eyes but at the desk between them. “And so will I, your grace.”

  He got to his feet again and came around the desk to hold out a hand for hers. He was feeling relieved, as if some burden had been lifted from his shoulders. They had spoken openly to each other and now had something practical on which to base their marriage. It seemed unimportant now that he had been enchanted by her warm vivacity and that after years of cold cynicism he had forgotten the lessons of ten years ago so far as to hope that there might be more than practicality between them. That had been fantasy. This was reality. And not such a very dreadful reality after all. She might love her secret lover, but she was his duchess and would be true to him and capable in the performance of her duties. Her training had been a thorough one, according to her brother.

  “Anna,” he said as she rose to her feet. He kept his hold on her hand and took the other one, too. “I know this is an hour you have not enjoyed. But ’tis as well that we have spoken frankly to each other, that we have got to know each other a little better. We did marry rather in haste, did we not? If we always practice openness and honesty with each other, I believe we will deal well together. ’Tis as well too that there is no deep sentiment between us. Sentiment leads inevitably to pain, as I discovered years ago.”

  Something flickered in her eyes. Yes, she had doubtless discovered it too, else why was she not married to the man she had loved and lain with?

  “I have always found that a better guiding principle in life is pleasure,” he said. “Although we were strange to each other last night, I believe we found pleasure together. I found delight in your body, and I have had enough experience with women to know that you found delight in mine. We will aim, then, for the performance of duty by day and for the indulgence of pleasure by night—as well as duty. I will teach you to satisfy my needs and you will teach me to satisfy yours.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He held her hands a little tighter. “And I would see you happy again,” he said, “and smiling again. The smiles were not all artifice, Anna? I liked them. I would see them again.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “But not now,” she said. “Later, your grace, but not now. I would be alone if I may.”

  He raised her hands one at a time to his lips and looked closely into her wide, green, unsmiling eyes. He inclined his head to her and released her hands. He strode across the room to open the door for her and closed it quietly behind her.

  Was she regretting, he wondered, that she had given up love, even an unhappy love, for rank and wealth and duty and pleasure?

  Well, if she was, the problem was hers. Perhaps she had not yet learned the lessons of love, but she would. He would give her and her sisters the home they needed. He had already given her the dignity of married status, which was obviously important to her and the security of rank and fortune. And he would give her pleasure, so much pleasure that she would forget the foolish love that had put the sadness into her eyes a little while ago and made it impossible for her to smile.

  He would fill her nights with pleasure. And his own too.

  Yes, despite the discovery he had made last night and her refusal to be completely open with him this morning, he was not sorry he had married her. Perhaps he was even glad that he had learned so soon that even in his marriage he was essentially alone. That he was to expect no real love, no real trust. He had learned the lesson too early in his marriage to feel betrayed by the knowledge.

  Luke got restlessly to his feet. He would go to White’s and endure all the bawdy remarks that would doubtless greet him there. He needed something to dispel the inexplicable depression of spirits that had not quite lifted despite a thoroughly frank and satisfactory talk with his wife.

  • • •

  The note had been brought by personal messenger, the butler informed Anna with a bow as she turned to hurry upstairs to her own apartments, with strict instructions that it was to be delivered into the hands of no one but her grace. The butler had taken the liberty of persuading the man that he himself would see to the matter.

  Anna took it upstairs into her private sitting room to read. A premonition of disaster set her hands to shaking as she unfolded the single sheet of paper.

  “This was very naughty of you, my Anna,” he had written. “It saddens me to know that perhaps you are having to endure a severe beating this morning. Your d
uke has a reputation as a proud and a ruthless man. I allowed the marriage to proceed—you looked more beautiful in your white and gold than I have ever seen you look—and will do nothing for a time to interfere with it. But Anna, you are merely on loan to the Duke of Harndon. It would be a grave mistake to become attached to him. I will come for you when the time is right and take you home. You will be happy there eventually and for the rest of your life. My promise on it. Your servant, Blaydon.”

  She folded the letter slowly and carefully into its original folds and stared down at it in her lap, dry-eyed, for a long time.

  “Why did you not stop it?” she whispered at last. “Oh, why did you not stop it?”

  10

  HENRIETTA had written again. She wanted a fountain constructed in the formal gardens—George had approved it before his death but had not had time to implement his decision. Mr. Colby was unwilling to allow her to proceed without his master’s permission. It was too bad of the steward to behave in such a high-handed manner, she had written. He frequently got above himself and forgot that she was still the Duchess of Harndon.

  But the tone of the letter changed just when Luke was being given the unpleasant impression that the years must have changed her into an imperious, peevish woman.

  “Come home, Luke,” she had written. “In truth, I care nothing for altering the house or building a fountain or for the tyranny of Mr. Colby. They are merely excuses to lure you home. Ah, how can I be anything but honest when lures have not brought you thus far? Come home. It has been a dreary lifetime since we saw each other last. Do not punish me longer for a single wrong decision I made ten years ago. I suffered for it, Luke, both before and after.”

  Henrietta, Luke thought as he set the letter down on the desk and sat back in his chair, had obviously not heard about his marriage. Will had returned home the day he proposed to Anna and so had not carried the news with him. Not that the marriage would make any difference in anything. Not as far as the two of them were concerned, anyway. Of course, it would take all semblance of power away from her. He was not sure how badly affected she would be by that.