“Very well,” she said, backing toward the door and letting herself out. In the hall, she looked around her, the pleasures they had just shared mingling with her anxiety about what she was expected to do and be to this man.
He was in pain. That was evident. Everything in this stark house said he had locked himself away. Everything in his expression told her that when he was forced to speak of his sister, as did his hesitance when it came to discussing his scar.
It was none of her affair, of course. She had been brought here for his pleasure. All she was giving him was the physical. But he couldn’t be truly happy until he had let go of the past. And a part of her that wanted to help him do just that, the dangers of making that kind of connection with him be damned.
Chapter Eight
When Alexander rounded the corner into his parlor a few hours later, he almost came to a complete halt. Marianne was already there. She was seated in a chair beside the fire, her legs curled up beneath her as she pored over the book in her hand. He was struck not just by how lovely she was—that was obvious. That was overpowering.
But it was how comfortable she looked that truly took him by surprise. Like she…belonged there. In his chair, in his parlor, in his house.
For a moment, that realization struck him and he wanted to…run. He wanted to turn tail and run like a coward from this slight, fascinating woman who had given him her body as trade for her safety.
“Alexander,” she said, her face brightening as she stood to greet him and cut off any option he had for escape. “Good evening.”
“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting,” he said, stepping into the room.
She shook her head. “No. I came in early to read. I didn’t want to be late. I have guessed you are a man who values punctuality.”
He couldn’t help the smile that twitched briefly to his lips. “Somehow I don’t see you as a lady who keeps a sharp eye on the clock.”
She blushed but a giggle bubbled from her lips. That sound was so light that Alexander actually stepped toward it.
“I admit, I can sometimes be forgetful when it comes to the time,” she said. “I get distracted often by a book or a chat with Juliet or my father.” Her smile faded. “Or I did.”
His brow wrinkled at the sadness that entered her gaze. Her father had torn apart her life and yet Marianne still mourned him. Despite the fact that there was color to her gown. He tilted his head at the pretty blue that caught the firelight.
“You are not wearing black,” he said.
Now the color in her cheeks darkened, but this time it looked like guilt that brought the pink there. “I…I want to,” she whispered. “But my cousin only allowed me to purchase one mourning gown and I had no time to dye any other gowns. After the travel, it needed to be laundered, so I packed other items. It is not out of disrespect, I assure you.”
Anger rose in Alexander’s chest, washing over him in an unexpected wave. How dare her cousin create such an environment for those who were now in his care? How dare he make Marianne worry even for a moment when she was already experiencing grief and pain and humiliation?
“I will have a seamstress come,” he said softly, “and a few additional gowns made for you. Once your sister arrives, I will extend the same to her.”
Marianne blinked in what appeared to be disbelief. “You would—you would do that for me? For her? That is outside the bounds of our agreement.”
He waved his hand to dismiss the concern. “The bounds of the agreement are what I say they are. You will have the gowns, I’ll have arrangements made in the morning.”
“I-I cannot repay your kindness,” she whispered, and he heard the tremble in her voice. The fear and the pain there wormed its way into a heart that had been so cold for what felt like a lifetime.
He cleared his throat. “You are repaying it. Now, supper is ready. Will you join me?”
She stepped toward him and he held out his arm to her in offering. But she didn’t take it. Instead, she lifted to her tiptoes and brushed her lips to his cheek. He turned to her, their eyes locking. The moment grew heavy with desire, the kind that was always between them. But there was something else there too. Something far more terrifying.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice thick. “You do not have to be kind. I know you say that is for your own purpose, but it makes my life easier nonetheless. No one has made my life easier for a long time, so I-I appreciate it.”
He didn’t know how to respond to her words, nor to the warm reaction that spread through his entire body. So he merely took her arm and led her into the dining room for their supper.
Marianne couldn’t stop staring at Alexander as the servants drew away the final dinner course of the night and replaced it with a raspberry tart that made her heart leap with its fruity scent.
The man was a riddle. Just like the tart, actually. Its center was bitter, but also sweet. Together, the combination was surprising and tantalizing.
Alexander was much the same. He could be so cold and dismissive, making her feel with every fiber of her being that this was a mere arrangement for him. That he gave no more care for her than he did a person he passed on the street.
And then he could be so much more. Like when he touched her, pleasured her. Or when he offered her an effortless kindness as he had in the parlor before supper.
And now he was somewhere in the middle. Quiet but not cold.
“This tart is divine,” Marianne said, searching for something to fill the silence that suddenly felt uncomfortable because she had analyzed it too much. “I do love dessert.”
He arched a brow. “I will pass that along to the cook. She’ll stack desserts to the ceiling if she thinks it will please me.”
“Ah,” Marianne said with a smile. “So the servants want to please you.”
He wrinkled his brow. “You sound as though that is a surprise or a discovery.”
“You are so reticent to share your thoughts, Your Grace, I am forced to determine them myself. Determine anything about you, really.”
He was staring at her now, his expression unreadable. Immediately she began to regret her cheeky outburst. Hadn’t she been told a hundred times to not be so bold? And yet she’d done it, so it was too late to escape the consequences now.
“It’s almost a game,” she continued.
“A game,” he repeated.
She nodded. “Yes. Certainly you are not unfamiliar with the concept. You must have played games now and then when you were a child. Though you seem the kind of man who has always been an adult.”
His cheek twitched and she thought he might be trying not to smile. That buoyed her confidence and she arched a playful brow at him. He sighed. “Yes, Marianne, I know what games are.”
“I love games,” she admitted. “Juliet and I are always making them up. Guessing how many sweets are in a dish or how many steps it is from one side of a room to another. Anything can be a game if one tries hard enough.”
She knew she was talking too much and expected Alexander to cut her off from her foolishness. But instead he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Including the reading of my thoughts.”
She nodded. “Certainly.”
“And you’re very good at games,” he drawled, his voice suddenly infused with that dark sensuality that made her toes curl in her slippers.
“Er,” she stammered, suddenly thrown by the glint in his eyes. She’d thought her playfulness would irritate him, but it didn’t seem to have that effect at all. “I’m good enough.”
“All right,” he said softly. “Then tell me, Lady Marianne…how many times have I kissed you?”
Her lips parted at the very naughty twist on her concept of a game. She worried her lip slightly and bent her head as heat rushed to her cheeks. “I—”
“Come now,” he said, pushing to his feet. “How is that question much different from guessing the number of steps from one side of a room to another?”<
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She gathered herself as best she could and cleared her throat. “It is very different, Your Grace. You see, there are many elements to a kiss. Sometimes one seems to bleed into another, so do you count those as one kiss or two or three?” Her breath came shorter as he moved in her direction slowly. “And then…and then there are the locations of the kisses. Are you asking how many times you have kissed my lips? Or does a kiss to the hand count? Or the neck? Or the…the…”
She trailed off, her words fading as he moved even closer. He felt very big now. Like he filled all the space in the room and in her mind. She struggled to continue speaking.
“And then there is the question of initiation,” she continued. “You asked how many times you’ve kissed me. So I now have to think of any times I kissed you. Or kissed you back or—”
“Marianne,” he said. That single word stopped her. She tracked his hand as he reached down to catch her arm. He brought her to her feet gently, and then she was against his broad chest, his full lips a breath from hers. “Here is an easier question. How long will it take to get to my chamber? Because I tire of this game and would like to play another.”
She blinked up at him, drawn in by everything about him. Then she leaned up and brushed her lips to his. He deepened the kiss, his fingers digging into her arms as he fought, very obviously, with an animal drive to claim her without regard for where they were. She almost wished he would, at that.
“Come with me,” he whispered, taking her hand and guiding her from the room.
She followed, silenced at last by the heat of his desire, by the trembling response of her own. For the moment she would set aside the confusion he created in her. For the moment all she would do was surrender.
Chapter Nine
It had been a week since her arrival at Alexander’s estate, and Marianne was no less confused by her role here than she had been the afternoon she arrived. The place was beautiful, of course, despite its stark emptiness. The gardens were perfect, the library filled with books to occupy her time, and her room was pretty and comfortable.
The servants treated her with nothing but respect, regardless of the fact that she was obviously here as a sexual plaything for their master. Even when she overheard them, when they didn’t know she was there, she’d never caught a one of them say a cross word about Alexander. They were cautious around him, but it was evident he was truly liked by those who served him.
And it wasn’t that Alexander didn’t spend time with her. They shared meals in the evenings and then retired to his bedchamber together, where he made love to her until her body shook and she feared she could take no more pleasure. She was slowly being molded to his desires and she reveled in the awakening his touch provided.
Beyond the physical, though, she was not satisfied. Alexander could talk about literature, politics, science, and she enjoyed their discourse on those subjects. But the moment she tried to talk to him about anything personal, he withdrew. Or more accurately, he distracted her with his mouth and his hands and his cock.
Now she stood in the library, staring up at the great shelves lined with well-worn books, and she huffed out a breath. These were not the subjects she wished to explore. She wanted to know more about the man who had taken her as a lover, as a mistress. She wanted to understand why he was so afraid to get close to her. She wanted to know how he’d gotten the scars both on his face and in his heart.
Outside she heard the rustle of a maid’s skirts, and she stepped out of the library and into the hall to find a young woman dusting a table.
“Excuse me?” Marianne said.
The young woman turned toward her. “Yes, my lady? Is there something you need?”
Marianne hesitated. She spent most days alone, locked away from the man who had brought her here. Today, that was not enough.
“Do you know where His Grace is this morning?” Marianne asked, trying not to frown. He had left his bed early in the day without anything but a brief kiss for her naked shoulder. Of course, that was his way.
“I believe he rode into the village,” the maid said.
Marianne shifted, disappointed that there would be no opportunity for her to speak to him directly. At least not right then, when her courage was up. “Do you know when he’ll return?”
“I’m sorry, my lady, I don’t,” the girl said, her cheeks darkening as she avoided Marianne’s gaze. “He often goes to the village to meet with his tenants and do other business. That’s all I know.”
Marianne nodded. “Thank you, you’ve been a great help.”
She moved past the girl, allowing her to return to her work, but as she walked, she pondered. If Alexander was gone for the day, that meant she would have a bit more freedom than when he was here in the house. And if she wanted to know more about him…well, she had a pretty good idea of where to start looking for that information.
She cast a glance over her shoulder, but the young woman in the hall had turned her back to continue her duties. Marianne sighed and walked swiftly down the hall. She stopped at the door to Alexander’s study. His fortress. His cell.
She tried it and found it unlocked, so she slipped inside and shut it behind her before anyone could see her and tell her not to enter his room without him present.
As she leaned against the barrier, she shook her head. “Of course, he’s not trying to lock them out. They’re all too afraid to violate his orders not to come in.”
She drew a long breath and looked around. She’d been in this room only once, on the day she’d arrived at the estate. She blushed as she thought of dropping to her knees and taking Alexander into her mouth for the first time. Her body hummed with the thought, as it was becoming an act she truly enjoyed and did often. Pleasuring him, making him lose control…she liked it.
She shook her head. She hadn’t come in here to think about the physical acts she wantonly enjoyed—she was here to see if she could learn something about the man who performed them on her. And she assumed he would be back at some point, so she put her mind to the task at hand at last.
She moved toward the bookcases near the fire first. While in the library the tomes were more entertaining or educational, the books he had in here were dry. Volumes on farming, the history of the shire he lorded over, thick volumes containing maps and plans for homes and buildings. The most interesting thing about them to her was how worn each book looked, as if they were truly used by the man on a regular basis.
“He takes his work seriously,” she mused as she moved away and stepped to his desk.
The leather chair behind it was well kept, and since she knew he didn’t allow servants into this room, that meant he applied oil to it himself. She shivered as she let her fingertips dance over the smooth, shiny surface and then drew the chair back to sit in it.
He was bigger than she was, and the chair didn’t fit her slender frame, but she scooted it closer to the desk and looked at the surface. It wasn’t tidy, that was certain. Papers and letters were strewn across the top, but all of them seemed to relate to the business of Avondale, which the man lorded over. There was a ledger, open to a line of neatly written numbers and scrawled notes in the margins about debits and credits.
But nothing personal. It was as if the man had shut off all things that related to himself and now they no longer existed. But that couldn’t be true. She’d seen the pain on his face when he spoke of his sister in London. And she’d felt the emotion that pulsed under the surface when they spent time together outside of his bed.
She sighed and was about to stand when she caught the glint of something metal hidden under a pile of papers. She moved them gently and caught her breath. The cameo she had returned to Alexander that had begun their wicked bargain now rested on his desk. He’d had it strung upon a gold necklace and it was now fitted in the pages of a book, almost as a page marker.
But this was no book about farming or the shire. This book looked like a worn journal. She stared at its leather cover, it
s yellowing pages with the cameo dangling below and her heart began to pound.
Clearly the book on this desk was personal. The glimpse she had wanted to get of the man who had brought her here. But to read his diary…
That was going too far, wasn’t it? To do something like that would violate his privacy and that was wrong, so very wrong. But it was such a temptation, this opportunity to look into his soul and see his life through his own eyes.
Her hands shook as she slid the diary across the desk to rest in front of her. Slowly, she turned the pages open to the place he had marked with his sister’s necklace. What she found was not his handwriting in the pages, but a lady’s. And judging from the context, it was Anne’s. This was his sister’s journal, not his own. The page marked was the last one before the book went blank, signaling an end to her life.
Sudden tears flew to Marianne’s eyes at the last few words written on the page.
I wish Alexander would not be so reckless with his affairs.
I wish he would come home and see me.
The page edge was worn far more than any other in the journal. And judging from its place of prominence on his desk and the marker that held its page, Marianne could only guess that this was something he looked at, read and reread over and over again. A private admonishment from someone he’d loved and lost.
A personal torture for whatever sins he believed he had committed.
Her heart ached for him, and she was about the turn the page back and see what had been written prior when the door to the study slammed. She jerked her face up to find Alexander standing there, his expression twisted with pain and anger and all the other emotions he so rarely revealed. His mouth opened and shut as she slowly stood.
He stared from her to the diary she had been reading before he said, “What are you doing?”
“Alexander—” she began.
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