He stepped softly, not wanting to frighten her, but she must have seen the lamp light. She turned and looked up at him through the wet fog. She looked almost haunted, so pale were her cheeks, and his heart did another panicky leap. “Are you well?”
She regarded him soundlessly, then returned her gaze to the blighted garden. “The soul is gone out of this land.”
She’d drifted off on another of her mental journeys. He very much feared he’d taken a madwoman to wife, but a gentle one, one that tugged at hitherto unknown heartstrings. He would take good care of her and the child she carried. “You must come in. You’ll catch a chill.”
“I don’t, generally.” Sitting cross-legged on the bare ground, wearing one of her old gowns, she sifted dirt between her fingers. “There are carriage wheels on your roses, and a burned-out kettle in the thyme. I believe even savage Indians take better care of their land than that.”
Drogo took a seat on the garden bench above her. She might not mind the damp ground, but he did. “Savage Indians must eat off the land. We do not.”
She twisted her head to look up at him. “I am of this earth. I must take care of it. I sometimes wonder if you are not of the sky, and if we will ever meet. I believe in things of the spirit, but you see only with your mind.”
Perhaps she was not so much out of her mind as in another place besides the one he inhabited. “I don’t claim to fully understand you,” he admitted. “But we’ve made a child together and must now learn to live with what we’ve done. What would you suggest?”
He thought she smiled. In the gloom, it was difficult to tell. He wanted to pull her into his arms and warm her, but he suspected she would slip through his fingers like the fog should he try.
“I like the way your mind works.” She leaned over, plucked a clover from the beaten grass, and handed it to him. “It has four leaves,” she informed him. “You are a very lucky man. There is an entire patch of them here.”
Drogo bit back a sigh of exasperation. He wanted logical advice. She handed him superstitious good luck charms. “We should go in.”
“You may, if you like. I need to think, and I think better outside.”
He shrugged off his coat and leaned over to place it around her shoulders. “All right, can I help you think so you will come in sooner?”
She shifted the coat more snugly around her. “Thank you. I cannot read you as I do others, but I think you are a very nice man, just a little too intellectually elevated above the rest of us, perhaps. I exist, you know.”
He stared down at her golden head and wondered if it was completely empty or if it just rattled. “Of course you exist. I never thought otherwise.”
“No, you think I’m a convenience, like the bench you sit upon. That’s not the same thing. There is a Me inside of me. A person. You’ve never met me, and you don’t seem much interested in knowing me, so I’ve tried not to get in your way. But that isn’t going to work if we live together, is it?”
A hollow opened inside him, a gaping, echoing hollow he recognized from long ago nights as a young child in a strange bed, in a strange house, without the familiarity of his mother or brothers around him. He tried not to let that emptiness speak through him. Carefully, logically, he applied his mind to whatever she might be trying to say. “I’m not used to having a woman in the house, if that is what you mean.”
“No, that isn’t what I mean. You had Sarah and Claudia and Lydie in your castle, but you didn’t know they existed either. You shut them out. Sarah is here now, and you seldom speak with her except in passing, as you would speak to your valet when you want your boots shined. I’m different, and that bothers you, but you’re still trying to reduce me to the position of bootblack or whatever.” She stroked the grass at her fingertips. “I think…” she hesitated as she formulated the phrases, “I think you’ve confined me to the role of Wife. A wife sleeps with you when you want it. She buys things, and her bills end up on your desk. She occasionally speaks, and you try hard to listen, but you really don’t hear. Your mind is elsewhere.”
He waited for her to go on, and when she didn’t, he figured he was supposed to say something. He had no idea what to say. He could stand in front of the Lords and speak for hours, but he couldn’t talk to his bride. Men talked about subjects he could understand. Women talked of things beyond his comprehension.
“I’m sorry. I really don’t understand. You’re my wife now. Wives and husbands share a bed. That’s the purpose of marriage. What would you have me say?”
“That you will send me back to Wystan because you know that is where I belong.”
That panicky feeling returned, and Drogo hastened to quiet it. He wouldn’t let her leave him. Couldn’t. He had to explain. He hated explaining himself, but his mother had said he must work at this, and so he would.
“Come here,” he ordered. If he was going to do this, he would do it on his terms.
She looked up at him again, and then unquestioningly, she stood up and settled beside him, curling her warm, soft fingers into his. She smelled of roses. Drogo laid his hand over her gently sloped belly and stroked. She was round and firm, and he could almost feel the life blooming there. He took a deep breath.
“You know my parents lived separately?”
She nodded. “Sarah explained.”
“Sarah knows nothing.” He sounded curt, even to himself. He tried again. “My mother is from a modest family. Her brother is a vicar. Her father owns a small estate close to the Ives holdings. My father was an arrogant man, raised to be an earl, the eldest and most spoiled of several sons. He always did as he pleased.”
She wriggled slightly beside him, and Drogo realized the bench was hard. This was no time for these unveilings, but he would have it done. He took his hand from hers and pulled her on his lap, where she settled gladly. Her breath whispered against his cheek, and he breathed easier as he wrapped his arms around her plump waist. He could do this.
“It pleased him to seduce my mother. It did not please him when her father went to his and demanded that he do the honorable thing, nor did it please him when my grandfather agreed. But threatened with disinheritance, he did what was right, and they had the three of us in the first few years of their marriage.”
“You and Dunstan and Ewen,” she recited, apparently confirming her memory.
“Yes. But my grandfather was still alive at the time, and he refused to give up the reins to his holdings. My father was bored and sought entertainment elsewhere, challenges which drew him to London, leaving my mother behind with us. He stayed away for a year or more. My mother retaliated by finding a man who would love her as my father did not. My father sought revenge by bedding every woman who consented. This tale becomes worse with the telling. Would you rather go inside?”
She snuggled closer and leaned against his shoulder. Drogo breathed the fresh scent of her, rested his chin upon the silken warmth of her hair, and tightened his arms around her and his child. Taking that for answer, he continued.
“I know of at least one bastard he created in his dalliance across the countryside. I have a half brother, William, by a dairy maid in the village. My father set her up with a small competence. At the same time, he filed a petition for separation with the courts and demanded my mother be removed from his home.”
She sighed, and her breath warmed the chill in his chest. “How old were you?”
“Six.” He gritted his teeth and continued. “You must know the rest. With the proof of my mother’s adultery, the court granted his petition, with the provision that Dunstan and Ewen be left with my mother. My father met Sarah’s widowed mother, Ann, about that time, and set her up as mistress. When she bore him a son, Joseph, he moved her into his home in my mother’s place since the separation agreement does not allow for remarriage. I do not know what hold Ann had on him, but after that, my father was content to settle down. Perhaps the death of my
grandfather gave him the challenge he needed, but I saw little of that. I was fourteen when he died, and the responsibility of the earldom fell on me.”
“And why do you tell me this?” she asked softly.
Drogo gritted his teeth against impatience. “To explain why I will never leave my wife as my father did. A wife and husband must live together, work together, play together, become one as my father and Ann did. He never strayed after he took her into his home, and I like to think they were happy together. That’s what I want.”
He held his tongue even though she made no immediate reply. Neither of them were talkers by nature, it seemed. He could live with that. He could not live without her beside him. He needed her in his bed at night, to remind him of why they were together. He needed his child where he could see him, watch him grow, be part of his life—something his father had denied Dunstan and Ewen.
“Your father and Ann must have loved each other to have managed a life together, even under such terrible circumstances. They had some common bond, whereas your father and mother did not.”
“They had three children together,” he said grimly.
“Ives men are very…” she chuckled and added, “virile. And with her upbringing, your mother would have tried to please him. Children are easy to make.”
He growled, and Ninian turned her head up and patted his cheek. Drogo imagined his bristles burned her soft palm, but he reveled in the touch. He’d reached deep down to a place he didn’t like to relate this story. He didn’t want to ever go through it again. He wanted her in his bed right now, and if they didn’t go soon, he would take her here on the grass. He needed to be deep inside her, outside of himself.
“Children really are easy to make, if the circumstances are right,” she assured him, “else there would not be so many in the world. Raising them is another matter. And making a relationship between two grown people is even more difficult, I expect. We really have gone about things in reverse.”
“That’s Sarah’s fault.”
“No, it’s ours. We played with fire and got burned. I do not regret it. I want this child, but if you mean what you are saying, if you mean to keep me at your side and see this child grow, then we have a very difficult road ahead.”
“I don’t see how,” he said grumpily. If she would just come to his bed, the road would smooth considerably. “I’m wealthy enough to support you comfortably. I will not beat you. I am trying very hard to listen to you because I know I’m not good at that sort of thing. I’ve even told you what no other but my mother knows so we might understand each other better. What more can I do?”
“Believe I’m a Malcolm witch,” she answered firmly, wiggling out of his grasp and standing. “Until you understand who I am, we can never be happy. I will try very hard to show you who I am, but we have left this too late. The child will be born in five months, and she must be born in Wystan.”
“There is nothing in Wystan,” he argued. “The session won’t end for months, and then the holidays are upon us, and my brothers are here. I assure you, my steward is looking after the village. There is no reason to return there until spring.”
“And until you understand and believe me, we are at cross-purposes. Good night, my lord. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She walked away. Drogo stared after her in disbelief. He’d bared the secrets of his soul, and she’d walked away. On their wedding night.
He jumped up to follow but stumbled over a rusting water can. In a fit of unusual fury, he flung it as hard as he could. It crashed into the assortment of carriage wheels leaning against the fence, and the clatter and bang did nothing more than cause his neighbors to open their windows and yell, and dogs to howl all across the city.
Maybe he’d go find Twane and pound him into the ground.
Twenty-two
Devil take it! He’d not let her get away with this. This was his wedding night. A husband had rights.
With dogs still howling in the distance, Drogo stomped up the stairs. He’d had to reassure the servants that they wouldn’t be murdered in their beds by a wild gang of tin can throwing thieves. He’d learned to be firm with his brothers. He saw no reason why a wife should be any different.
Prepared to batter down a locked door, he nearly fell in as it swung open. Righting himself, he glared at the candle-lit bed.
Ninian had removed her old gown and sat in a simple shift against her pillows, reading the book he’d given her. At his entrance, she glanced up with curiosity but no fear.
He felt like an ogre. He didn’t lose his temper, damn it. He never lost his temper.
Sighing, he took another deep breath and plunged his hand through his hair. Unlike his half brothers’, his hair was thick and straight instead of curly, and the ribbon fell out easily. He must look like a wild man.
“This is our wedding night,” he reminded her.
“We’ve already had our wedding night,” she corrected. “That’s the problem. We did this backward.”
Ninian watched her husband standing there in all his masculine confusion and almost backed down. Firelight flickered over the taut planes of his dark features, and she remembered the night they’d met when she’d thought him the devil. She still thought it sometimes, but for better or worse, he was her devil. She admired the way he controlled his temper before speaking. She also liked the way one thick strand of hair pulled loose to hang beside his ear, an obvious sign that she’d disturbed his usually ordered life.
She craved his attention and affection, and the heat in his eyes nearly burned through her resolution. She wanted to throw down the book and open her arms to him.
She couldn’t open her arms to him. The life of their child depended on it.
“Backward?” he repeated, obviously bewildered.
“We had our wedding night first, and now we must go through the period of courtship where a couple learns to know one another.”
He seemed stunned. Her logical, sensible, very controlled husband had difficulty grasping her intuitive version of their problem.
Just his presence stirred unbidden responses that caused her to regret her decision. She’d never seen him in daylight with his shirt off. She wanted to see all of him, in the morning light, in her bed, before and after making love. She wanted to see his laughter.
She stroked the gray cat on the bed beside her and watched Drogo coolly. She hoped it was coolly.
“You want courtship?” he asked in astonishment.
“We’ve done the wedding night, then the wedding. It seems logical.” She beamed in approval of her own thinking.
“Courtship.” He staggered to one of her fireplace chairs and collapsing, stared at her in incredulity. “I’m sitting here in my wife’s bed chamber, while she wears nothing but a shift—which, by the way, shows your beautiful breasts and the roundness of our child quite delectably—and you want courtship?”
Heat bubbled through her at his words. Now that he’d mentioned it, she could feel the taut points of her nipples rubbing against the thin linen, and she very much wanted them touched as he’d touched them last night. But her daughter’s future depended on her resisting a moment’s pleasure.
“Call it what you will, then, but you must see me as I am before we can go forward.” She held up her book and asked brightly, “Shall I read to you?”
He glared daggers. She was gambling he was not a man who took women against their will. That was a very large and dangerous gamble. He could overpower her without even trying, because she’d cave in at the first kiss.
“I think, wife, that you are as insane as I believed you to be from the first. Do you wish to drive me to the arms of other women?”
She looked at him with interest. “Have you had other women since our wedding night?”
He scowled. “It wasn’t a wedding night. It was a moment of insanity.” At her continued look of interest
, he shrugged uncomfortably. “I’ve been busy. And then I received Sarah’s wretched letter, and everything’s been arse backward since.”
Unexpectedly, that news thrilled her. He’d not had any women but her since they met. She radiated confidence now. “Well, in the interest of equality, should you take another woman, I’m free to look at other men.”
“What?” He almost shot out of his chair as he roared this, but he gripped the arms as if they were her throat and sat down again. “So that’s what that equality vow is about?”
“Well, I’m not precisely certain, given I’ve never married before, but it sounds applicable.”
He looked at her shrewdly, finally getting her measure. “You’re making this up as you go. You’re angry because I won’t take you to Wystan, and you want to get even.”
“No, I want to teach you a lesson,” she said earnestly. She wasn’t much of a teacher, but he was an excellent student. He caught on quickly, much too quickly.
“If I come over there and kiss you now, you wouldn’t even put up a fight, would you?” Dark eyes studied her as his temper seemed to cool at this discovery.
She couldn’t be any less than honest. “I don’t know. I’d like to think I’d try. The future of our child rides on it.”
His curled eyebrows almost straightened as he lifted them. “The future of our child rides on our not making love?”
“On our not having… sexual congress.” She used the physician’s words. “Making love is entirely different. We haven’t done that yet.”
She thought his eyebrows would fly straight off his head. Then his eyes narrowed, and he glared at her again.
“I suppose this is some female nonsense about love and romance. You raise your hopes too high if you expect that to happen. I’m willing to be patient and give you time to fit into my life but do not expect love songs and sonnets from me.”
Merely Magic Page 20
