A Midnight Clear

by Kristi Astor

  He had always been so easygoing, well mannered and perfectly behaved; she had thought he no longer felt the emotions of a normal person. She had done him a terrible injustice. “I think we need to tell him about Alexander and Samuel.”

  “It is not up to us to decide,” said Scully.

  “Yes, but I thought it would be a few months, but it has been three years. What will Max thinks when he hears the truth?”

  “He’ll probably forbid you to marry me, so we should hurry up and do the deed, love.”

  Fanny shook her head. It had been months now that Scully shared her bed, yet her womb had not quickened in pregnancy. He might protest all he wanted, but she knew denying him children was wrong.

  Roxana relished the feel of Max. His skin was warm against hers. His breath rasped into her mouth and his hands were magical as they coaxed her body into new heights of rapture, and then that male part of him filled her, stretching her so much she did not think it possible to contain him, but as he drew back and forth nothing had ever made her feel more complete than him inside her.

  He groaned and pushed deep inside her, and then wracking tremors shuddered through his body. She could feel the throbbing pulse of his release deep within her. Her heart pounded against his and she felt filled and complete, connected to him in a way that was beyond the physical. This joining of their bodies was as close as they could come to marking their rapture. Yet she was disappointed it was over so fast, disappointed they would need to talk, that she would again hurt him with her need to be independent.

  Yet as he rolled to his back, carrying her with him and then pulling her up, she protested the breaking of the connection between them. But then his mouth closed around her beaded nipple and spark after spark flew to the fire still smoldering in her woman’s core. His tongue rolled and teased her to a new tenseness that could be ended only with a release.

  He moved to her other breast, nuzzling and sampling as if she was a tasty treat to be savored. Then, his hands at her hips, he drew her up as he scooted down the bed, his kisses trailing down her belly. Her shock and surprise was soon replaced by raw pleasure at the wicked ministrations of his mouth on that most sensitive part of her. Then she was coming apart and falling all at once, and Max was there to catch her.

  He settled her against him, drawing the covers over her and settling one hand over the curve of her bottom, the other holding her head to his chest. He pressed kisses on her forehead and crown as she drifted down through the glow of completion.

  She was nearly asleep when he said, “You need to get dressed.”

  She shook off the fuzziness and raised her head. He slid her to his side and scooted to the edge of the bed, leaning over to retrieve his clothing.

  “My carriage is outside, and I’m taking you away from here.”

  He handed her shift to her.

  Roxana clutched the red material to her breast. He’d heard nothing of what she had said. Her breath snagged as she shook her head. But his back was to her as he drew on his underclothes and he did not see her refusal. “I’m not leaving. This is my life.”

  He turned toward her as he buttoned his unmentionables. “Roxana, you have to marry me now.”

  She shook her head. How many times did she have to refuse him?

  “You could be carrying my child.” He reached for his shirt.

  Roxana backed off the bed, still clutching her shift to her, feeling naked. Her feet encountered the cold bare planks of the floor. Their unpolished worn feel was familiar to her, comforting because this was her place. Yet the floor was frigid against the bare soles of her feet, as if to mark her step into a separation from him and the bliss they had shared.

  “I’m sorry, I do not want to marry you, Max.” It hurt her to say it.

  He stared at her as if she were a foreign creature. He bunched his shirt in his hands. “My honor demands marriage, Roxana. I cannot live with knowing I have ruined you. I thought . . .” He shook his head. “You have given me no reason to refuse that makes sense.”

  He might be standing there barefoot and shirtless, but he was every inch the imperious duke. And she hated to defy him, but... “If I were to marry any man, it would be you, Max. But I shall not marry.”

  “You are mine, now, Roxy.” He pulled on his shirt. “You will marry me.”

  “You do not own me,” she said in a low voice. A wife was a possession, which was why she would never marry.

  He bent and picked up his socks and sat in the chair to tug them over his feet. Even his feet were beautiful, long and masculine. “I want to take you away from this miserable place.”

  Anger sparked in her. “This miserable place is my business that I have planned and saved for for years, and I have struggled to make my dress shop successful. I know I have not paid you back yet, but I will. I have clients, and for God’s sake can you not see that I am proud of this?”

  His brown eyes turned stony. The warmth that had been there as they made love was gone. “Why do you feel you must struggle? I can take care of you. I can take care of your family. You do not have to work so hard to live. I want to take care of you.”

  “I do not think you know me, if you cannot see how important my dress shop is to me. Please, Max, I do not want to fight now. I cannot marry you. I just want to be with you.”

  He stopped in drawing on his low boot. “Then marry me, Roxy.”

  She took a step back, biting her lip. If he said the right words, she feared she would say yes. And then she would live in a perpetual state of fear, waiting for the day she pushed him too far. “I think you should leave now.”

  “What was this, Roxy?” He stood and gestured to the bed where the evidence of their lovemaking was clear. “What did you intend when you invited me into your bed?”

  “I wanted money,” she meant it as a jest, but it petered out when she could not add the smile.

  “Bloody hell!” He tossed his boots aside and thundered toward her.

  His boots thudded against the floor. She spun away. The wall stood in front of her and there was nowhere for her to go. Memories of her beatings when she defied her father flashed like lightning strikes through her head. Max did not like being defied.

  She dropped to her knees and wrapped her shift around her hands. She needed to shelter her hands; they were her livelihood. He would beat her into submission. It was just like her father beat her mother, beat Roxana when she was defiant. A husband had that right. A lover might assume it. How foolish she was to think the distinction mattered.

  He stood over her; she could feel him towering above her, his shadow completely enveloping her, and she waited for the blows to come....

  “I think you should go look for him,” said Fanny, putting down her napkin.

  Scully continued with his soup. “Not, yet, love. I do not mind having you all to myself of an evening. Do you think you could forget about Max for a moment and concentrate on me?”

  Fanny suddenly burst into tears. Scully stared at her, wondering what devil was in it now. He pushed back his chair and moved around to her chair.

  “My pretty Fanny, whatever has distressed you so?”

  “I cannot marry you, Dev. I know I cannot give you children, and I cannot do that to you.”

  Scully sighed. “I do not need children, Fanny. Am I not child enough for you? Or am I too much a child in your eyes?”

  He had hoped for a smile through her tears, but she turned away.

  “I have decided it will not do. I have kept you from your home too long. You should be free to marry a young woman who will be your companion forever.”

  Perhaps he had been too indulgent with Fanny, letting her decide when she trusted his love was strong enough, when she believed enough. “Fanny—”

  “You have been disappointed every month. I have seen your reaction, Dev.”

  “Of course I am disappointed that we will wait another month to be married or that I must restrain my ardor for an entire week or more.” A thought knocked at his bra
in. “How can you think that I do not remain steadfast in my love and devotion?”

  Fanny blushed.

  There had been plenty of laughter and times that he chased her down the walking paths at the Trent estate and she had giggled, running away, but always let herself be caught in the most secluded arbors or in the artificial grotto that seemed to have been built for their private picnics. He had played the game, stashing blankets and wine and strawberries. Other times he included her children, teasing them into laughter and teaching Thomas the finer points of piquet and crabbo, and telling Julia she was growing into quite a beauty. He had given Fanny the idyllic courtship any woman would beg for, and more.

  But ever since they had arrived in London, following Max on his quest to find Roxana, she had been a bundle of nerves and exaggerated emotions.

  “I am applying to the archbishop for a special license tomorrow. We will be married by week’s end.”

  Fanny raised her tear-filled blue eyes to his. “Dev,” she whispered.

  He was tired of hearing her protests. “What date is it?”

  “December tenth,” she said, and then her eyes widened.

  “Special license, Fanny. I am done trying to convince you of my love.”

  “Dev?” Her expression was uncertain, not daring to hope. “Do you think I have—”

  “Yes, your French friend is late.”

  She smiled, and for once her smile did not warm his heart. That she would consent to marriage only when she was with child bothered him. Did she not love him? Or was he still only a playmate to her? Or just a means to an end?

  He had to get away. He had gotten what he wanted; he should not be so bitter about the method. He was sure that when he had time to reflect he would be glad that she might be with child, but he would have much preferred that their marriage had come first.

  “I’ll go find Max,” he said.

  Max stared at the bony knobs of Roxana’s spine and the ripples that marked each of her ribs beneath the lily-white skin of her back. But most of all he noticed the long pink welts of scars crisscrossing her back. He touched a finger to one long thick ridge. How had he not noticed these before? But as he trailed his finger down the pink strip, the texture of her skin was still soft and silky, only slightly marred to the touch. Would he have even noticed the slight change from undamaged skin to the healed marks?

  She shuddered.

  Her dark hair was still in a low twist at the base of her skull. The knot had loosened and hung down, but that they had not unpinned the dark masses of her hair was another reason he could see the scars now.

  “You have cowered like this before. Do you think I would ever raise a hand to you?” He hunched down behind her, his fingers still tracing the lines and patterns of her disfigurement, as if he touched her gently enough, soothingly enough, he could heal her. But Max’s anger and disappointment had stilled. Did her refusal to marry have to do with this?

  Roxana’s spine straightened, and she seemed to be trying to unwind her hands from her shift. She was not a woman who was meant to cower, and it tore at him to know that there were times when fear overtook her so powerfully. She shook her head and her long dark hair swung down over his hand, covering the secret and the gooseflesh that rose on her back. “You did not throw your boots and cross the room so quickly to . . . to . . .”

  “To kiss your scars. I did not see them before now.” He shifted her hair out of the way and pressed his lips on the trail of abuse. “Who did this to you?”

  “It does not matter.” She leaned forward to her knees.

  “This is more than one thrashing.” Her father? Surely it could not have been the weak downtrodden woman who was her mother. He remembered the tiny cottage where her family lived and the strange man who was her father, the man whose permission he would need to marry his daughter, and understanding clicked into place.

  “It does not matter,” she repeated.

  He pressed his lips against her nape. He wanted more than ever to protect her, to take her away from the horror she had lived in her life. “I crossed the room to wrestle you into clothing because if you keep prancing around naked, I will end up back in your bed and my poor coachman is waiting outside in the cold.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said wearily.

  “This is why you refuse to marry me, Roxana?”

  She turned slightly. “A husband has the right to discipline his wife.”

  “Not to do this, Roxana.” He brushed his palm over her back.

  She grabbed his thumb, circled it with her finger and thumb, and then pulled it off and held the circle in the air. “You could beat a wife with a rod as big as this. I will never marry, Max.”

  Max felt sick as he recognized that the law allowed a man the right to control his possessions. And a wife and children were considered his possessions. He struggled against his own need to claim her as his own and protect her.

  “At least let me take you home. Fanny has probably held dinner for me. You have not eaten.” He pulled the wadded mess of red silk from her hand and searched for the hem to position it over her head. She shivered. The room was cold and he wanted her again; scarred or too skinny, she was still everything he wanted in a woman. Yet she did not trust him. She tarred him with the brush of a man who had beaten her.

  He shook his head. Who was he fooling? Men made laws that gave them the right to bend women to their wills.

  “No, Max, go home.”

  He pulled the shift over her head and lifted her long silky hair free of the material. He pulled out the few pins that clung ineffectively to the strands. Piling them in his palm he reached around and handed them to her. “I’m not leaving you alone this night. If you will not come home with me, then I’ll stay here.”

  “I have work to do. Go home, Max. Go have your dinner.”

  He lifted her into his arms, standing and carrying her over to the chair he kicked directly in front of the stove. How could he win her trust if he insisted on going against her expressed wishes? “You are intent on breaking my heart.”

  He sat her down in the chair and said gruffly, “Get warm.”

  Collecting his boots and the rest of his clothes, he drew them on and looped his cravat around his neck. He drew on his overcoat and hoped that the capes would disguise the disarray of his clothing, although his coachmen and the accompanying footmen would not have any doubt about his purpose in a dressmaker’s shop well after it had closed for the evening.

  As soon as Max left the room, Roxana stood and found a wrapper and scuffs to put on her feet. She would need to go lock up after him and set the bar across the door, but she wanted to be sure he was gone before she went down to the shop. She leaned over the table to blow out the lamp, saving the precious oil, and opened the door of the stove. The dim orange glow from the coals provided enough light for her to sew.

  She heard the door below and knew she needed to go downstairs and throw the bolt. Her eyes blurred as she crept toward the stairs and found her way down them in the darkness. She had not thought he would leave so easily. But he had gone, and she felt even more acutely alone.

  As she made her way among the wire frames displaying her creations, her chest began to ache. A sob broke free as she approached the glass door at the front of the shop. She could see, outside, the tall form of him standing in the recessed doorway. He turned and she did not know if he saw her or had heard her in the clear silence of the moonlit night, but he reached for the knob and stepped back inside her shop and gathered her to him.

  A starkness in his face hit her much harder than she expected. She buried her face against his coat.

  “So you wanted to become my mistress only?” he asked.

  She nodded, relieved he understood.

  “You know I cannot live with that, Roxana.” He kissed the top of her head. “I cannot stomach the dishonor.” Then he backed away from her, reached for the door, then stepped outside into the cool night. She saw his crested carriage pull up, and he swung in
side.

  Why couldn’t he?

  As she watched his carriage drive away, she felt as if she had severed her last link with the world. She had told him to leave and he had honored her request. She pressed against the glass and her sobs broke free.

  As she bolted and latched the door she saw a man move on the other side of the street. The street was fairly deserted, but London never slept and even though all the shops were closed, people still traveled the street.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Max pressed his palms against his temples. What was he to do? He wanted her. He owned her. He could not own her. His thoughts swirled and he came back to the realization that he had again behaved with dishonor. He had convinced himself that she was no longer an innocent, so there was no harm in bedding her. God, he knew better, but he could not think clearly around her. Nothing good ever came of violating the tenets of his upbringing.

  His carriage drew to a stop and the door opened. Scully swung inside.

  “Where have you been?” asked Scully.

  “Are you my keeper now?” asked Max, wondering how Scully had come across him.

  “Forget that. Did you find her?”

  Max stared at his hands.

  “Fanny is in a fret about you,” Scully said.

  A sharpness in his voice made Max look up at his friend. “What is wrong?”

  “Offer me your congratulations, son. She has finally agreed to be my wife.”

  Pain shot through Max. Roxana would never agree to be his wife, and he finally had a glimmer of an understanding why. She was wrong, but how could he expect her reason to be balanced with those scars on her back? “Good, then.”

  “I suppose we shall have to draw up a settlement.” Scully turned toward the carriage window and stared out. “You are the head of the household.”