by Allegra Gray
No London girl knew what to think of the highlands upon first sight. To her, the surroundings would seem strange, the customs foreign. In time, though, the strangeness would wear off, and the charm would shine through. He hoped.
Leventhal House had been built to blend with the landscape, using rock quarried locally. He heard Charity’s indrawn breath as it came into view.
“Welcome home, my lady.”
She tore her gaze from the window. “It’s huge.”
He laughed. “You said the same thing last night.”
Her eyes popped wide and the first smile he’d seen in hours cracked her face. She batted at him with a pair of gloves she’d been clutching. “That is too bad of you, Lord Maxwell.”
“Well, Lady Maxwell, the manor house is of good size for a reason. My ancestors had a mind that we Maxwells would reproduce rather liberally.”
Her mouth fell open. “My lord!”
“I think ten or twelve is a reasonable goal. How soon do you think we will get started?”
By the time the coach stopped and Charity took her first steps onto Maxwell land, Graeme had her giggling so hard she had a hard time keeping upright.
Her infectious laughter rang out, signaling their arrival to all. The staff rushed to greet them, and soon the normally-stoic faces of the servants were wreathed in smiles as well.
It was not, perhaps, the most dignified way to introduce one’s new wife and mistress of Leventhal House, but Graeme had a feeling it was, in this case, the right way. There was nothing his home needed more than good cheer.
“Uncle Graeme!” Nathan came running pell-mell from the grounds behind the house, ending with a flying leap into his uncle’s arms.
“Oomph.” Graeme exaggerated his stagger as he absorbed the little boy’s weight. “You’ve gained a full stone, I’d wager.”
He giggled. “I have not.”
He set the boy down. “Nathan, I’d like you to meet my new wife, Lady Charity.”
He settled down, eyeing her with a mix of interest and trepidation. “A pleasure to meet you, Lady Charity,” he recited, as though he’d practiced.
Charity stooped to his level. “No, the pleasure is mine. Would it be all right if you call me Aunt Charity?”
Nathan nodded. “Aunt Charity.”
“May I hug you?”
He shrugged. “I guess so.”
Graeme knew his nephew was trying not to get his hopes up, but the smile tugging at his mouth gave him away. As Charity gave him a hug, the boy looked up at him and mouthed “she’s pretty.”
Graeme nodded and winked. “I am a lucky man, don’t ye think?”
He introduced her more formally to the butler, housekeeper, and other staff, then insisted on giving her a tour of the house himself. Nathan tagged along for most of it, before finally getting bored and running off to play.
Graeme seized the opportunity to finish the tour by stopping to kiss Charity in each and every room.
The rain that had threatened earlier had now begun to fall in earnest, bringing a chill over the burgeoning spring. Graeme led Charity back to the library, which boasted three walls stacked floor to ceiling with books and other oddities, and a fourth with large windows overlooking the grounds. A fire burned merrily in the hearth, dispelling the gloom outdoors.
“Ooh, I think this room is my favorite,” she exclaimed, moving over to stand by the fire.
“It is?” He pulled a face of disappointment.
“You don’t like it?”
“Oh, I like it, lass. ‘Tis only that I’d hoped the bedroom would be your favorite.”
She laughed and teased him right back. “The bedroom? With that huge, enormous bed? I cannot possibly imagine why anyone would need such a monstrously large bed. Unless your ancestors were giants. Were they?”
“Nay, not to my knowledge. There would have been tall tales about that, and I do not remember any. Their virility was legendary, however. That I know. All sorts of tales abound.”
“Letch!”
He grabbed for her and she laughed again, sidestepping.
“Since you seem to lack imagination, I will make it my task to show you exactly why we need such a huge, enormous bed.” He caught her up and this time she didn’t resist, but kept her back to him as she leaned into his embrace. Her bottom rubbed up against him in a manner that had him rock hard in a second.
His hands slid up over the curve of her breasts, skimmed her shoulders, and found the pins that bound up her luxurious pile of golden hair. He pulled one, then another, but her hair remained stubbornly in place. Frustrated, he muttered, “How does it do that?”
She turned and peered up through her lashes. “A woman never reveals her secrets.”
“Will you take it down?” He nibbled at her throat, feeling her pulse leap reflexively at the touch.
“Now?”
“You have somewhere else to be?”
“When you put it that way…” She deftly plucked several more pins out, sending her locks tumbling down, one after another, in a cascade of gold. The firelight reflected off the shiny mass. Graeme sank his hands into the strands of silk and tilted her face up to his.
Do you like your new home? He wanted to ask, but it was too soon, everything too new and strange. Instead he kissed her. The question could wait until he was sure he’d won her over.
She kissed him back, her tongue tracing his lips. He parted them and sucked her in, never able to get enough of the taste of her. He heard the tiny ping of the hairpins hitting the floor as they slipped from her hand.
He bent lower, licking a path along her collarbone, eliciting a shiver and a tiny moan. He kept one arm around her, still buried in that beautiful hair, and used the other to tease her nipple through her gown. “Make love to me,” he murmured against her neck.
“Here? Now?”
“Why not?”
“My lord. We only just arrived. And we’re in the library. What will the servants think?”
“They’ll think I brought home a beautiful woman for my wife and am doing exactly what any warm-blooded man would do.”
“But—but—” she sputtered.
He waited, knowing from her expressive blue eyes that, once again, she was torn between passion and propriety. It was one of the things he loved best about her.
In the end, she gave in and did exactly as he’d hoped.
Graeme pointed out the library window, across the grounds. The “tour” had taken a delightful detour—long enough to leave them both satiated, and long enough for weak rays of sunlight to finally break through the clouds.
“Just over that hill is the dowager house. I’ll take you to meet my mother this afternoon, now that the rain has let up.”
“She lives there alone?”
“She has a maid. Cook sends over meals, and Nathan and I walk over to visit.”
“But the manor is so large,” Charity said. “She could stay in the main house.”
He shook his head. “I told her the same thing, especially before I married. She chose the dowager house, though. It helps her remember.”
“Remember?”
He hesitated. “My mother…sometimes has trouble keeping track of time. Not like she gets busy and loses track, but like whole years slip away. At Leventhal House, where she and my father spent so long, it’s harder for her to remember that he has passed on, or that Nathan is my sister’s son, and not me.”
“Oh, I see.” Charity pictured an elderly, lonely woman whose mind was starting to go, and felt sorry for her.
When they visited later that afternoon, Charity was surprised to find that Graeme’s mother was not much older than her own. She was sweet, and very welcoming of her son’s new wife, even if she did seem to have trouble remembering Charity’s name and finally just settled for calling her “dear.”
“When my father died,” Graeme explained on the walk back to the main house, “something inside her just cracked, and it never mended quite right. I lost a bit of her at t
he same time I lost him.”
“How awful. She loves you, though.”
“True. She wants Nate and I to be happy, even if she cannot always remember which of us is which.”
No wonder Graeme was so protective, Charity reflected that evening, having been introduced to nearly everyone who lived or worked at Leventhal House. Aside from the responsibility of the earldom, he had both his mother and Nate to care for. It also explained why he’d come looking for a wife. It had to be lonely at the top, with all those people looking to him for their well-being.
She’d done the same thing, in a way. Looked to him as the answer to her problems. Guilt pulled at her chest, now that she understood how much more than that Graeme needed in his wife. His people would look to her, now, too. Charity swallowed. Would she prove worthy of the role?
Chapter 11:
“The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.”— Albert Camus
The first few days at Leventhal House passed in a blur of activity. Charity was too exhausted to even decide whether she liked it or not. She liked little Nathan, and she liked Graeme, and she really liked the moments spent alone with her new husband.
The rest was, honestly, a bit overwhelming. She longed for her own clothing, and a familiar face or two. She wrote to Penny to ask if the maid would accept a transfer of position. With the slow pace of the mail coaches, Charity knew it would be weeks before she’d have an answer.
The highland home was busy by day, but at night, it was far quieter than Charity’s native London. The stillness helped her sleep, though. That, and the carefully-measured doses of laudanum she made sure to take before bed. So far, though her dreams were sometimes troubled, she’d not experienced another breakdown.
As grateful as she was for that, she’d nicknamed the medicine “the vile vial.” When it was empty, she was not going to get more. Not this time. It was only too easy, as she knew from last summer, to come to rely on it night after night, needing more and more to find relief. She hated the lingering lethargy, the fog that crept into her mind and stayed like stagnant water in a bog. The doctor had dismissed her concern, but she’d felt herself, her mind and soul, slipping away. She didn’t dare tell anyone. They’d just take it as a sign she was descending further into madness.
Against doctor’s orders, she’d stopped taking the medicine. That had been a mistake. Horrible aches and restlessness plagued her until she’d caved once again.
The next time, she tried weaning herself slowly. That worked better. The sleeplessness and panic attacks had come back, but by then, the staff at Lady Medford’s house had been trained to calm her down. How embarrassing.
Additional visits to the doctor had yielded no useful advice. “You need to forget. Thank heaven you are alive and unharmed, and put the rest out of your head.” As though it were that easy. Charity had concluded that the doctor was an idiot with a truly odd definition of “unharmed.”
Doing things her own way hadn’t gotten her much farther, but at least she was in control. Most of the time. Until that one night at the Wicked Baron’s Masquerade, when everything had been too much, and she’d given in to the temptation of opium-laced wine. Look where that had gotten her.
Well, actually, despite a few awkward moments, it had gotten her a husband. So why should she be surprised that she needed a tincture of opium in order to keep her husband?
Charity tugged at her hair. No. She didn’t need it. Tonight’s dose was the last. She would not purchase more. Surely she was stronger than that. She was almost certain now that Graeme loved her. Somehow, she’d find her way back to sanity, or she’d make him understand.
She was beginning to think the doctor had been wrong about more than just the laudanum. He and her family had all recommended keeping the whole matter to herself. Eligible bachelors, they’d said, would not look kindly upon a woman whose behavior put her in compromising situations. Their reasons made sense, and yet it would be so much easier if she could just tell Graeme what had happened, and how sometimes little things that didn’t bother anyone else bothered her greatly.
Finding the opening to such a conversation, though, was a challenge.
“There are still so many things about you I have yet to learn,” Graeme told her over breakfast the next morning.
It was almost the perfect opening. Why, yes, she could respond. Did you know that last summer I was drugged, kidnapped, mishandled, then left to die? But when she opened her mouth to speak, what came out was, “What do you wish to know, my lord?”
“Do you like to ride?”
An image of their lovemaking last night flashed before her. His broad chest, the trail of hair tapering down his taut stomach to where her thighs straddled him as she rode them both to completion.
Clearly, that was not what he was asking. Her brief hesitation must have given her away. His eyes darkened with heat. “I so love the way you think, my wife.”
“I have received considerable education in the art of riding recently,” she replied demurely. “I find I like it very much.”
That was all it took. Strong arms hauled her from her chair and over to his. “Do you now?” he asked, his voice turning husky. Pushing her skirts out of the way, he settled her atop his lap, straddling him, face to face. “Very much?”
She nodded, already breathless with anticipation. This wasn’t the discussion she’d intended, but the sudden flare of need sent all other thoughts scattering to the winds. His unquenchable thirst for her fueled her own desire. This handsome, powerful man she called husband couldn’t get enough of her. Nor she him.
The position he’d placed her in put her breasts nearly in line with his mouth. He kissed her jaw, then her neck, her collarbone. She barely registered his nimble fingers at the tie of her wrapper or her chemise—until he tugged the edge of the fabric down and the heat of his mouth covered the tip of her breast.
She couldn’t help it. She cried out, and ground down against the burgeoning hardness that pressed up against her most intimate place.
Graeme groaned. He used his hands to rock her hips back and forth. Charity grew slick as her need spiraled higher. She rocked against him as he tugged on her nipple. More. She needed more.
Her husband knew it. Needed it just as badly. He was adjusting his trousers, loosening the laces, when a discreet cough came at the door. “Leave us,” he growled, his grip tightening like a vise when she would have shimmied away.
“Graeme! They’ll all know.”
“Mmm. They probably already do. My reputation as a masterful seducer is growing even now.”
“You’re terrible.”
He finally freed his shaft, and with a single movement, lifted her and settled her atop it. She sank down slowly, savoring the way he filled her. He rocked his hips again, and she forgot to care what anyone might think.
She gripped his shoulders, grinding down harder as she moved against him, sensations building, spiraling higher and higher until she shattered atop him, shuddering and drawing him deep as he, too, found release. He head fell back as he pumped into her, long and hot and hard.
Long moments later, Graeme recovered enough to lift his head. “I hope this won’t leave you too sore for an altogether different sort of ride.”
She shifted experimentally. “I shall be fine, my lord.”
“Good. Believe it or not, there is much I still want to show you. I had in mind a ride out through one of the villages. The crofters are all anxious to meet you. A bit further on, there is a high knoll that will be covered in wildflowers this time of year. Shall we explore it?”
She agreed, and they spent the afternoon visiting crofters and frolicking like children on holiday. The balmy breeze and sunny sky had wildflowers unfurling in the meadows. She asked Graeme the name of each and every one, delighted when he knew most of them.
He introduced her with pride to the highlanders who herded sheep and wove their wool
. With every passing hour, Charity knew she’d fallen deeper in love with her husband. The dashing man who’d romanced her away from London was noble in more than just title. His dedication to his people and his land was a tribute to his character.
Unlike her own, the character of Graeme Ramsey Maxwell was not besmirched. More than ever before, her family and her doctor’s advice made sense. Keep your secrets. If her husband knew the full extent of her transgressions, he would know he had chosen a wife unworthy of the role. He would look down on her. How could he not?
Better to start fresh. She would spend every day from now on doing her utmost to be the best wife he could ever ask for. With any luck, he’d never find out that she hadn’t been that way when he’d married her.
Graeme’s lovemaking that night was fiercely tender. “I love having you by my side.”
“I love being there.”
He gathered her close in his arms. In the dark, she could feel his smile against her cheek. “Whatever compelled you to attend that ridiculous masquerade, I shall be eternally grateful.”
She smiled too. “As shall I. There are probably very few couples who can say they met their future spouse at the Wicked Baron’s ball.”
“I should think not. An event more likely to destroy a marriage than to spark one. But I am not so foolish as to question fate.” He trailed kisses down to the hollow between her breasts, and Charity lost track of the conversation.
Afterward, she lay still. Making love to Graeme was everything she’d imagined and more. No two times were the same, but every time was wonderful. She stretched her toes beneath the sheets, her body deliciously sated, if a bit sore. Beginning with breakfast, it had been a most passionate day. Graeme’s arm lay heavy across her as he drifted toward slumber.
