Neville stroked her bare thighs, and Fiona wrapped them around him, just as he’d said she would. He touched her in a place that ached unbearably. His coaxing fingers had her bucking under him, searching for a release only he could provide. In a matter of moments, pain was forgotten in wonderment as she shattered into a million pieces.
Lost among the stars, she wept in joy as he filled her again. Murmuring soft promises in her ear, he drove them both over the moon until he planted his seed deep inside her.
Gasping for breath, drenched in perspiration, Fiona slipped into the languor of satiation as Neville slid off of her. She would regret what they’d done in a few minutes, but not now. Right now, she just wanted Neville’s strong arm around her, reassuring her that the world still spun properly on its axis, and she wouldn’t fall off.
“I knew you were the one,” he whispered, smoothing tendrils of damp hair from her face. “This is as close to perfect as life can get, Fiona.”
He lied, she thought vaguely. Maybe he didn’t know he lied. This wasn’t perfect, far from it. But it was good. Incredibly good. And if they didn’t know what they missed, then they couldn’t regret it. She knew more was out there. She was sorry they would never know it. But it didn’t matter. She’d slipped and fallen and she would never find that bolt hole now.
He kissed her, and she could only remember how incredibly good it had been.
Anticipation replaced any lingering notion of regret.
***
“I think it’s a damned good thing we set the date early,” Michael said gruffly, watching the couple scuffling through the colorful leaves covering the lawn.
Blanche pulled his hand down to her abdomen and smiled. “Perhaps this new babe will have a second cousin of the same age. They can play together.”
“They’ll have the same birth date if we don’t keep those two apart,” Michael warned. “I want to punch him every time he looks at Fiona that way.”
Blanche chuckled. “And you wonder why Neville raged when he’d found what we’d done before we married? I’d say he’s getting even, but he never thinks like the rest of us. I’m utterly amazed that he’s thrown over any chance of marrying money in favor of love. I never would have believed it of him.”
“Then don’t believe it now,” Michael said crossly. “Your high and mighty cousin’s just inflicted with a bad case of lust. And Fiona is no better than a mare in heat. I foresee only ruin and disaster when they both snap out of it.”
Blanche smacked his arm and shoved his hand away. “I’ve never heard you so pessimistic. When they ‘snap out of it,’ as you so crudely put it, they’ll discover they’re in love. Sometimes the first flush of heat gets in the way of that fact.”
“Blanche, my dear optimist,” Michael sighed, kissing her hair, “That’s what happened to us. That is not necessarily what happens to everyone.”
“It wasn’t lust,” she said petulantly. “We loved each other from the start. Other things just got in the way.”
“Well, other things will stand in the way of love in this case. This is a match made in hell if ever I saw one. I wish I’d never sanctioned it.”
“You thought Fiona would turn him down.” Blanche gave him a knowing glance and hastened her steps in the direction of the courting couple who had disappeared amongst the trees while they watched.
With a rueful grimace, Michael followed her. “You’re right at that. It hadn’t occurred to me that lust blinds even intelligent women.”
Blanche stuck her tongue out at him, picked up her skirts, and ran across the lawn, laughing, as he chased her.
***
“Aye, and I hear yer a papist,” the nearly toothless man in the stable said as Fiona called for a horse. He said it so Blanche couldn’t hear. Considering the source, Fiona ignored him, taking the reins and leading the mount into the yard without his aid.
“She’s one of them heathen Irish,” a voice whispered as Fiona entered the mercantile a little later. Blanche had stopped outside to talk with a neighbor and didn’t hear this either.
“She’s bewitched His Grace,” another voice agreed knowingly. “I saw crows perched on the fence. The crops will all rot in the barns.”
Searching the gloom of the crowded store, Fiona discovered the whisperers behind bolts of cloth—two old crones who glared at her with malicious eyes. Back home, the villagers might occasionally disagree with her ways, but they respected her. She didn’t know how to deal with this blatant fear and superstition.
She could only ignore it. Surely time would cure their fears. Fiona returned to the doorway to wait for Blanche.
“She’s no one,” a well-dressed woman passing by on the street said to her companion, both oblivious to Fiona’s presence. “Irish rabble. Were it not for our dear duke, I’d cut her dead in the street. The Irish are such drunken heathens. I don’t know how we shall ever face her politely.”
Anger surged. She could endure ignorance and superstition, but these women should know better. Had she not seen Blanche hurrying in her direction, Fiona would have stepped outside and taught the biddy a lesson in humiliation. But she couldn’t do that to Blanche. Neville’s cousin had grown up here, knew the entire populace, and they all adored her. The two women looked up and smiled at Blanche as she approached.
“Honoria! Loyolla! How lovely to see you again. It’s been so long...” Blanche saw Fiona standing in the doorway and a worried frown marred her brow. Hastily, she made introductions. “Have you met my husband’s cousin, Miss MacDermot? You’ll love her. I’m sure she’ll have Anglesey ringing with gaiety once again.”
Reluctantly, Fiona joined them. She wanted to scratch out the eyes of the two biddies instead of nodding politely, but she owed Blanche her allegiance. She would behave. For now.
The women twittered and fluttered, nervously waving handkerchiefs, reticules, and parasols. Fiona wished she were a foot taller so she could look down on them. Instead, she maintained the distant composure Neville used and refused to offer her hand.
“I’m not certain if the duke wishes to do much entertaining while in the country,” Fiona said coldly when it came her turn to speak. “I’ll be certain to mention your names should he do so, though.”
She smiled inwardly as both women twitched. They had to have realized by now that she had been standing in the doorway and overheard their conversation. If they’d had visions of vast entertainments in the grand Anglesey palace, they could watch their dreams crumble to dust. The only way in hell Fiona would mention their names to Neville was as people she wouldn’t greet if she lived to be a hundred. She gave them a wicked smile so they fully understood their fate.
“I’ve never seen Honoria and Loyolla so nervous,” Blanche whispered as they parted company with the sisters and returned to the mercantile. “They organize the church’s Easter fete so marvelously every year, I cannot imagine them flustered. Anglesey has apparently gone entirely too long without a duchess.”
And it should probably go on a good deal longer without one. Even Lady Gwyneth would have handled the sisters better than Fiona had. She simply didn’t have the temperament for niceness.
Fiona scarcely heard Blanche’s chatter as they progressed through town. Obviously warned by the sisters, the villagers were on their best behavior, bobbing and curtsying whenever Fiona came in sight. But she saw no smiles or any genuine welcome. She sensed only resentment.
As they rode in the carriage back to the house, Fiona finally caught one of the comments Blanche threw into the one-sided conversation.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Fiona asked.
Blanche threw her a nervous look. “It’s of no moment. I’m prattling, as usual.”
“You said something about Neville being unable to fix those roofs another year.” The roofs in question had solid slate instead of thatch, but Fiona could see the gaps where the tiles had broken or slid off. They needed replacing.
“It’s nothing. Do you think your Uncle William will arrive in
time for the wedding? Neville has sent his yacht, you know.”
Fiona knew nothing of yachts or sea travel, but she knew about leaky roofs. With some of the haze of panic out of the way, she could survey her surroundings a little more clearly. She should have paid attention much sooner.
As the horses clattered down the rutted road, Fiona opened her eyes.
Some of the tenant cottages were little better than whitewashed mud. The cottages she’d first noticed with tidy slate roofs were the exception. Most had thatch, and badly rotted thatch at that. Enclosed fields gave the tenants no garden plots of their own, and the only animals she saw were the sleek, well-fed cows inside the fences. The hedgerows were as poorly tended as the cottages, yet the fields showed signs of a wealthy harvest. Someone lived well off this land, but returned nothing to the people who lived here.
The towering spires and turrets of the sprawling Anglesey seat appeared on the hill ahead. The tall flagpole proudly waved the Anglesey flag, showing the duke was in residence. From her first visit, Fiona remembered the sprawling lawns divided by the ha-ha to keep the cattle from the drive. She remembered the wealth she’d seen in the vast expanse of rolling hill and field. But now she saw the little details, the unscythed grass where the cattle didn’t roam, the untrimmed branches of a tree killed in some storm, the pitted drive in need of reworking. None of it was major. Perhaps Neville simply had a bad estate manager.
Surely an estate as vast as Anglesey had the funds for repairs. Didn’t it?
Fifteen
“Did you realize some of your tenant cottages are in sad need of repair?” Fiona paced the lovely navy and burgundy carpet of the informal withdrawing room where they’d retired after dinner. Unlike at Aberdare, there was a lovely warm fire, but she wasn’t at all certain that it was the fire’s heat warming her as Neville came closer.
“I will speak with my steward,” he replied, catching her arm and halting her pacing. “How long do you think Blanche and Michael will take to say good night to the children?”
“Not long enough for what you’re thinking.” Fiona held him at arm’s length as he bent to steal a kiss. “Really, we must talk, Your Grace.”
“Back to ‘your grace,’ are we? Blanche shouldn’t have stationed her maid in your room. I think I’ll bribe her. We have better things to do than talk.”
She wore a puff-sleeved evening dress and had not donned her gloves after dinner. Neville did unholy things to her flesh as he ran his hands up and down her bare arm. Just his proximity had the power to distract any intelligent thought. She pressed her palm against his cravat, knowing only too well the strength concealed beneath his deceptive clothing.
“Your mind is stuck in a narrow rut, Your Grace,” she said bitterly. “Can we not ever converse on a different level?”
Neville tickled her cheek with a tendril of her hair. Every nerve in her body screamed to be closer, to steal his kisses again, to feel his arms around her, to feel the blood pounding recklessly through her veins, making her so alive that she could hear the birds sing in the dark. But she wasn’t entirely an infatuated child. Part of her mind still functioned with maturity.
He chuckled, removed her hand from his chest, and kissed it. With that barrier removed, he leaned over to brush his lips against her cheek. He gave her a knowing grin as Fiona shivered in delight despite herself. “In a few months or so we might try intelligent discourse,” he agreed. “I’ll grant, there are other things on my mind right now.”
Fiona shoved him away. “What will be different in a few months’ time? How will we ever know each other if we never talk?”
Neville caught her waist, spreading one hand over the small of her back while the other lightly explored. Fiona shivered again but didn’t move away. Couldn’t.
“I think, for us, it might be best if we did our talking between the sheets.” For once, he didn’t look at her with amusement as he twisted a strand of her hair. “Anger comes a little less quickly when we can touch and remember the good things between us.”
“You never get angry.” Fiona slapped his hand away and turned around, forcing herself to walk away from his addictive touch.
“Don’t I?” he asked in that annoyingly impassive voice.
She’d seen what he’d done to those drunks who had dared attack her, but she didn’t think he’d been angry then. She had the distinct perception that he’d enjoyed himself. She swung around and faced him. “No, you don’t. You watch the rest of the human race as if we’re amusing creatures placed here for your entertainment. Well, I don’t wish to be part of your entertainment. If we marry, I want to be part of your life. That means we must talk. That means you must explain why an estate as wealthy as this allows its tenants to suffer every time it rains. That means you must accept that we will disagree on almost every subject under the sun and we must come to some means of solving those disagreements.” As Neville started forward, Fiona stepped away. “And going to bed is not the solution.”
“That’s a relief to hear,” a dry voice said from the doorway. “If you’re already disagreeing, I don’t think bed the adequate solution before marriage.”
Neville scowled and turned on the intruder. “I’m going to put a bell around your neck, Aberdare. Why can’t you make noise like normal people?”
Michael shrugged and strode into the room. “For the same reason Fiona doesn’t, if you haven’t noticed. If I annoy you, Fiona will drive you insane. Are you quite certain that you’re prepared for this marriage? I would not have her miserable for the rest of her life.”
The duke seemed to grow half a foot taller and three stone heavier as he assumed a fighting stance, fists clenched, legs spread. Fiona marveled at the way he did that. At the same time, she wanted to smack him silly.
“I have no intention of making her miserable,” Neville said coldly.
“But you will, and I’ll return the favor.” Fiona stepped out from behind Neville’s back to stand between the men.
Looking down at her, Neville wished he could release her hair so it would gleam red in the fire’s light. He’d seen it in a braid, knew it came nearly to her hips, and longed to see it loose and flowing—preferably across his pillow. But now her petal soft skin held his interest. It glowed with health and passion, just as the light in her eyes leapt and danced beneath the dark fringe of her lashes. His bride exuded passion just standing there, and he kept his hands in fists just to refrain from touching her.
“I’d not intentionally hurt you in any way,” he said, ignoring the earl, focusing only on her.
“I know you wouldn’t, but I’m perverse enough to wish you would because then I’d have the right to fight back. I bring nothing to this marriage. It makes me feel lowlier than any servant.”
“Lower than a carpet?” Michael asked with amusement from behind her.
“Be quiet, Michael.” Fiona didn’t even turn around. She knew her cousin sought to soften the tension. But she didn’t want it softened. She wanted it exploded. “Can you not see how wrong this is?”
“Michael has agreed to a very generous settlement. You do not come to me empty-handed, Fiona.” Neville scowled over her head at Michael. “I am not marrying you for your dowry, however. I think you know very well why I want you as my wife.”
“Is that enough?” she asked. “Can we base our entire lives on that? I’m Catholic, Neville. I’m Irish. I’m a farmer’s daughter. Do you not think your people will despise you for making a duchess of such as that?”
“The Duke of Norfolk is Catholic, and it hasn’t ruined him that I can see. You’re making mountains out of molehills, Fiona. If we disagree, it won’t be over your religion or your origins, I can promise you.”
No, it would be over the roofs of tenant cottages and superstitious old biddies and the time he spent in London when she would prefer staying at Anglesey. It would be over her wish to see her home again and her refusal to entertain in the manner he needed and any of a half million other subjects. She knew this, yet she
had condemned herself to it from the first moment she’d allowed his kisses. Why?
Neville caught her chin and lifted her face so their eyes met. “Don’t, Fiona. Don’t build walls before we find ways to breach them. I’m nearing thirty years of age. Give me some credit for knowing the woman I want when I see her.”
Oh, Mary, Mother of Jesus, when he looked at her like that, said things in that intimate lover’s voice, chills ran up and down her spine—more correctly, the juices spilled to her lower parts and she wanted him so much that she couldn’t hear herself think.
“I’m trying, I really am,” she whispered. “But it’s not what I ever wanted, and the strangeness frightens me. We won’t even be married in the eyes of my church.”
“You’re too wise to believe religion separates us and too brave to be frightened long, Fiona.” He smiled and released her chin. “You’ll hit me over the head with a chair if I don’t behave, and I’m thinking it’s my tenants who should be afraid.”
She smiled weakly at his imitation of her accent. “Will my dowry buy the looms then?” she asked, returning to mundane matters until her knees could hold her without shaking.
“The looms and more, my dear. If you can wait until the session ends, I’ll take you home to see for yourself.”
That made matters less bleak. She curtsied and bestowed on him a mocking look. “I’ll be holdin’ you to that, my lord duke.”
As she flitted from the room, Neville reluctantly turned to meet the earl’s concerned gaze. Michael was the most intuitive man he’d ever known. Nothing got past him.
Michael sat slumped in a high-backed chair by the fire, studying Neville. “She’s not a simple child, Neville. She’s a strong-minded woman, although I’m not certain she fully recognizes that yet. I don’t think hiding things from her is the best way of handling the situation.”
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