“Do not tell me you didn’t enjoy yourself, madam,” he said, his tone grave. “I felt every inch of your luscious body respond to my touch.”
A fresh wave of heat suffused her cheeks again but she resisted the urge to avert her gaze from his intimidating stare. Instead, quietly furious, she fisted her hands in her lap and leaned toward him to continue her tirade.
“Respond to your touch?” she seethed in a whisper. “You didn’t touch me, sir, you used my body and humiliated me for your own lustful intentions. I was willing to give myself to you as your wife, but you made me wear an absurd costume and ridiculous shoes, then called me by my stage name while you yanked me down on top of you to take me sitting.” Tears filled her eyes and she decided not to fight them at this point. “You hurt me, sir, without considering my feelings or the fact that I had never been intimate with a man, and I still feel the pain from what amounted to nothing more than a callous…acquisition of your right. If that was lovemaking, I can only hope that you left me with your child tonight so that I will never have to be touched by you again.”
He gaped at her, speechless, his face growing deathly pale even in the dimness of lamplight. Unable to stand his company a moment longer, she stood abruptly and rounded the piano bench, backing away from him as she moved toward the door, her anger overflowing.
“You couldn’t wait to have a lusty time with my body in the most selfish way imaginable, and yet you still haven’t even asked me to call you Colin.”
That said, she turned on her heel and walked out of his study, chin high, back rigid, leaving him alone on her piano bench to wallow in his thoughts.
She could only pray he’d feel as miserable now as she did.
Colin reclined on the settee in his bedroom, one leg stretched out on the floor, the other hitched up over the armrest, a half-empty whisky bottle in his hand, which he dangled over the edge of the seat while he stared blankly at the ceiling. Dawn had broken at last, and yet he didn’t feel like moving, like talking to anyone, like working, or even rising to bathe.
For a long time he’d tried to think of something practical, household matters or work, things he needed to do for Sir Thomas, swallowing his expensive liquor with zeal and gazing at nothing in particular. It hadn’t worked. He simply couldn’t help but relive his night with his new wife, the crazy eroticism that had overtaken him, the way she’d responded to the striking desire between them, reacted to every stroke, every shared kiss and the touch of his lips on her skin. She had responded physically, he knew that as any man would, but it had never entered his mind that she hadn’t enjoyed him, or the act itself. Somehow she’d fooled him…or he had been blind.
Now quite drunk, feeling pitifully wounded, even embarrassed, he let himself consider and reflect on every moment of their interlude together, how she’d returned his kisses with passion as her wetness coated his fingers, how she’d complied with his order to wear what had to be an uncomfortable outfit in every way, especially for a virgin. And he knew she was a virgin. Logically he’d known as much before his wedding to the Lady Charlotte Hughes, though the line between Charlotte and the exotic, sensual Lottie seemed to blur with him, a fact Charlotte threw back in his face when she accused him of calling her by her stage name. While it was true that he’d wanted to bed his wife to make their union legal, he hadn’t really considered the ramifications of doing so as if he were making love to the woman of his dreams. What he wanted more than anything was to take Lottie in a whirlwind of lust and passion, hot breaths and moans, to make her come over and over before she satisfied his raging sexual hunger. He’d wanted to be her greatest lover, and instead he’d hurt her because he’d been not her greatest, but her first.
Suddenly, through a wave of nausea, he heard the faintest musical notes drifting up to his bed chamber from his study below. She played magnificently, a minuet he only vaguely recalled.
Colin closed his eyes and raised the bottle to his mouth again, taking a long, full swallow, feeling the burn in his gut and strangely delighting in it.
Had he been stupid in imagining a full week in bed with her, the two of them laughing, touching, stroking, lying together in a pleasure-filled embrace? After last night she wanted nothing to do with him, and never in his life had he been brought to his knees by a vision so beautiful, then hit over the head with insult at his lovemaking abilities. He was Colin Ramsey, the noble Duke of Newark, admired by every female in the land, married to a well-respected lady of the peerage. He knew how to treat a woman, and Charlotte should have anticipated grand lovemaking by someone with his reputation, even, he realized, if society had exaggerated that reputation just a little. Yet she said he’d left her in pain, a thought that not only cut him to the core, but filled him with a certain, rare humiliation.
Now, lying flat on his back in his bedroom, still wearing his wedding trousers and a loosely opened shirt, he listened to her play to the beat of his pounding head. And the more she played, the more it annoyed him that his wife of less than twenty-four hours had brushed him aside after only one night and returned to her passion at the pianoforte. Ridiculous, and he’d be the fool of London if anyone learned how fully in charge of him she’d become in one day. He wasn’t about to let her win this battle.
With resolve, he attempted to sit up on the settee, the room spinning suddenly at his effort. After allowing his rolling stomach to calm, he slowly stood, still clinging to his half-empty bottle.
What the hell. He swallowed deeply again, then wiped a palm down his face before walking unsteadily toward the hallway. He took two or three deep breaths to balance himself, then staggered down the stairs in bare feet, following the sound of the music until he reached the door of his study, cracked just enough for him to watch her and listen for a moment before he fully opened it.
She didn’t hear him, wasn’t aware of his intrusion, which gave him ample time to consider how he might begin a discussion. She’d plaited her long hair, twisting it up atop her head, and now wore a modest morning gown in light green, its wide skirts flowing over the piano bench, its puffed sleeves stroking her ear lobes with each fast movement of her nimble fingers.
Head splitting, he leaned his unsteady form against the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest, his open whisky bottle clutched in one palm.
“Beautiful,” he said just loud enough for her to hear.
Startled, her fingers fairly flew off the keys and she whirled around to view him, her luscious mouth dropped open.
He offered her a crooked grin, but said nothing for a moment, enjoying her surprise.
Removing her spectacles, she looked him up and down, noting, he supposed, that he carried the bottle and still wore his clothes from the night before, though her eyes lingered on his chest, reassuring him that she certainly enjoyed his body, at least on a conventional level.
“I like it when you look at me,” he drawled very softly, his eyes narrowing as he focused on her face.
Her features went flat as she sat up straighter on the piano bench, placing her hands in her lap. “You’re drunk, sir.”
He nodded faintly. “Indeed, I am, madam.” He watched her for reaction to his honesty, but she cleverly hid her feelings behind an expression of simple irritation.
“I’ll be leaving in a few minutes,” she declared in a haughty tone. “I’ve scheduled a lesson with my vocal tutor, and then I’ll need to be at the theater by noon. We’re beginning rehearsals for The Bohemian Girl today.”
Colin stood erect again and started to saunter toward her. “You’re very busy for a newly married lady,” he replied, scratching the day-old growth of beard on his cheek.
She huffed. “Unlike you, I have a profession—”
“Unlike me?” he cut in, trying like hell not to slur his words. “You think I don’t have work to do?”
“Actually, I’ve no idea what you do with your time, sir,” she shot back.
“Indeed you don’t,” he replied just as quickly, offering nothing more.
Colin felt like crawling out of his skin, aching to grab her around the waist and yank her against his body so she couldn’t help but give him her undivided attention. But that would only make her angry, less willing to disclose her thoughts with candor.
Swiftly moving very near her, one leg between the bench and the instrument, her gown blanketing his shin, he leaned around to put his face in front of hers. She didn’t even react, just continued ignoring the fact that he was even in the room.
“I’ll leave you alone to go about your business, Charlotte,” he said in a gruff murmur. “But you must answer one question for me first.”
She sighed, exasperated, then placed her hands on her hips and turned to him. “What is it, your grace?”
He waited for a moment, blinking in an attempt to hold her irritated gaze, trying to organize his thoughts through the fog in his aching head, to calm another wave of queasiness. He hadn’t been this intoxicated in ages and the effects of the alcohol were beginning to catch up with him. He didn’t have long before he lost his stomach and embarrassed himself in front of her all over again.
Inhaling deeply, he reached out and took one of her hands in his. To her credit she didn’t immediately try to pull away; she just watched him wearily.
“I want to know,” he whispered very slowly, “if you were satisfied last night.”
She tipped her head to the side minutely and glanced down his body again, taking particular note of the bottle dangling at his side.
“If you can’t remember last night, your grace, then all the better. I’m trying to forget the incident myself.”
The incident? That comment certainly spurred his agitation, as was no doubt her intent. “My memory is fine, madam,” he countered in a low drawl, “which makes your answer all the more important. I remember how you felt on me, but I was rather engaged in my own…satisfaction. I want to hear, from your lips, if you received yours.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly and she tried nonchalantly to free her hand from his grasp to no avail.
“I refuse to discuss the intimacy that occurred between us, sir, especially when I can hardly understand your words which, at the moment, lack enunciation,” she charged. “Now, if you please—”
“Were you satisfied, Charlotte? That’s all I want to know, and then I’ll let you go.”
She shook her head, totally baffled. “Your question makes no sense. The entire affair was completely unsatisfactory as a marital bedding, especially wearing that ridiculous outfit. You obviously seem to remember that part and I believe we’ve been over this.” She huffed and stood straighter, looking him up and down for a final time. “You are highly inebriated and would do best by returning to your bed and getting a decent night’s sleep. Now.”
Naturally, in such a state of drunkenness, he couldn’t react very quickly when she suddenly jerked her hand out of his and stepped back far enough to put the piano bench between them, clinging to the music she held against her chest as if it might protect her.
“It’s time for me to leave,” she maintained, “so if you’ll excuse me—”
“No.”
Her mouth dropped open a fraction. “I beg your pardon?”
He lost his balance briefly, caught himself, then braced his hip against the pianoforte once more in a concerted effort to remain standing. Doing his best to focus on her face, he slurred, “I said no, or at least not yet.”
His command took her aback. He watched her eyes widen, then narrow to slits as she stared at him, fuming, knowing fully well that as his wife she didn’t dare challenge his authority.
Colin rubbed his own tired eyes, thinking. Something about her answer troubled him, and because of the blasted whisky and incessant pounding in his temples, he found it exceedingly difficult to understand why. He needed another swallow from his bottle but refrained from taking it, certain she’d grow more disgusted if he gulped it in front of her.
She continued to stare at him with an anger he could actually feel, her lips thinned, her gaze markedly defiant, waiting for direction as a good wife should. And suddenly, as if hit in the head with falling bricks, it occurred to him that she might not really understand what he’d asked, that she might not be even vaguely aware of the pleasures of the bedroom. She might be totally ignorant of—
“Did you climax, Charlotte?” he asked in a husky timbre.
For a moment or two she looked confused, squeezing her music hard against her chest. Then a certain shock overwhelmed her and she gasped, hot color flooding her cheeks, a look that pleased him enormously. He decided to move closer, stepping away from the pianoforte and rounding the bench toward her, careful in his stride so he wouldn’t fall.
“You know what it is to climax, don’t you?” he drawled as a statement rather than a question, noting how she continued to stare at him with wide, dazed eyes, her green gown accenting the rosy tint in her skin, the reddish highlights in her hair. “I want to know if you climaxed when I was inside of you, last night. See…I thought you did, and that you thoroughly enjoyed it. Am I mistaken?”
She swallowed, then seemed to recover herself as she stiffened before him. “This conversation is appalling, sir,” she whispered. “I refuse—”
He grabbed her upper arm, yanking her against him, and she immediately attempted to break free.
“Let me go,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
He held on tightly, gazing down at her beautifully flushed face. “Answer me.”
“When your drunken stupor is finished, perhaps you’ll recall that I hated what you did to me. It was shocking, uncomfortable, and humiliating in every way. Nothing about it was enjoyable.”
Colin dropped her arm as if she’d scalded him, staggering back a foot or so, reaching out to clutch the mantelpiece on his left as the room began to spin. She swept past him at once, holding her music with one hand, her skirts with the other, her head held high.
“Charlotte?” he called out as she reached the door.
She paused without looking over her shoulder at him. “What is it?” she enunciated angrily.
“I’d like you to call me Colin from this moment on,” he said in a dark murmur, realizing he likely slurred every one of his words but deciding he no longer cared. “Especially during the intimate times we’ll share together in future.”
For several long, silent seconds she did nothing. Then without comment, or even an infuriated glance in his direction, she walked out of his study, chin high, as if she had so many more important things to do.
He stood there for a long time, feeling disillusioned like he never had before, still clutching his whisky bottle, which he finally placed upon the mantel.
“I am a goddamned idiot,” he admitted aloud to no one. Then closing his parted shirt in case he spotted servants on his way, he staggered back to his bed chamber, emptied his stomach, and crawled between his sheets.
Chapter 9
Charlotte had great difficulty concentrating on the tedious lecture given the cast of the latest production of Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl that would premier at the Royal Italian Opera House in Covent Garden next fall. She knew from the players that it would no doubt be a magnificent run—if they could get Adamo Porano, one of Italy’s finest tenors, to stop complaining about everything, including, even, the quality of food provided them at rehearsals. But then their theater manager, Edward Hibbert, had courted the famous Porano, hoping that by giving the man the lead he would also be able to court Balfe himself, wooing Great Britain’s most famous modern composer from the Continent, where
he remained dedicated to finishing the four-act French version of La Bohemienne, scheduled to premier next year in Rouen. And if Balfe arrived, the theater might be graced with Queen Victoria as well, which would mean splendid sales and increased income and exposure for all. Charlotte had her doubts about being an integral part of something so grand, though secretly she’d give everything she had in the world to meet Balfe. If granting Porano’s every wish made that possible, she’d hire an Italian chef and feed him herself. Funny how thoughts of the great Balfe, even now and in a professional, operatic setting, led to thoughts of her husband, a nobleman with more money and connections to the elite than anyone she knew. Perhaps if she begged him, he’d arrange an introduction, even take her to Rouen to meet the man. But then the gracious, generous Duke of Newark would probably require another bedding in a brand-new corset in exchange for the favor, a notion that made her shudder inside.
“You’re not paying attention,” Sadie whispered from her left.
Charlotte offered her friend and fellow soprano a wry grin, sitting up a little in an attempt to concentrate on Walter Barrington-Graham, their director, as he scolded them for musical notes bungled or forgotten or both when they sang through the second act.
She’d been given the lead soprano role of Arline, her first time with the part, though because she’d sung the music for years, none of the arias were new to her. Being chastised by Barrington-Graham wasn’t new to her, either, so in an attempt to keep from yawning through his tirade, she opened her fan and began swishing it slowly back and forth in front of her chest.
They’d all taken seats on the stage in the now-empty opera house, where they would meet almost every day for the next two months, preparing, practicing, and readying themselves for opening night. Rehearsals would last several hours each day, starting with just one pianist and the music, followed by placement on the stage, culminating in dress rehearsals with costumes and cosmetics and full orchestra, led by the famous French conductor, Adrien Beaufort. In the meantime, she would be subject to Barrington-Graham’s daily reprimands and insistence that if they performed as poorly in front of an audience, the government would reinstate banishment to Australia and he’d be the first to go, his head hanging in disgrace. A notion beyond the ridiculous, but then this was drama.
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