The Earl of Windermere Takes a Wife (Lords of the Matrix Club #1)

by Jen YatesNZ

  As she screamed her release to the heavens with total abandon he increased the speed and depth of his hand until she was convulsed in one long cry of total ecstasy.

  She dragged desperately at his hips, trying to haul his body over hers.

  ‘Rogan-I-want-you!’ she cried.

  His body as immovable as the rocks above them, he absorbed her screams with his mouth and continued to pump his hand until her cries became whimpers and faded at last to tiny bubbling sobs. Gently he drew her skirts down over her trembling legs and folded her into his chest with her face buried against the thundering pulse in his neck. Jassie could do no more than cling to his warmth and strength. It was safer than whatever would come next.

  Chapter 2

  He was the lowest, ugliest cur in the pack. Jassie was wrapped in his arms and he could not force himself to release her as a gentleman would. He should never have allowed himself to touch her in the first place. She had trusted him with her body, her innocence, her virginity and what had he done with that momentous gift? He’d raped her. Sure, a purist might argue she’d been willing, even importunate, but the fact remained that Rogan Master-of-Control Wyldefell, aristocratic bloody Earl of Windermere, had lost all semblance of self-command and taken her with the finesse of a stag in the rut.

  Everything he’d feared of himself had come to pass. He’d captured her wrists so she had no chance of fighting against his superior strength and body weight and forced his way into her body with never a thought for her untried, uninitiated state.

  In short he had betrayed her in the worst possible way—this woman who had loved him so well and so long. She deserved better. So much better. He’d known that from the start and had told her so when she was sixteen and just coming into her power as a woman. It would have been so easy to take what she’d offered then and sully her with what he’d already become. But he’d prided himself on still being the gentleman he’d been raised as—in all the ways that were left to him. He’d been damaged beyond repair when it came to the intimacies between a man and a woman and he’d vowed never to subject her to that, no matter how his soul had hungered for her. He’d known every time he’d come home to Neave, drawn irresistibly as a fish to the lure, that he risked—this.

  There was only one way this could ever be put right. They would marry and he would install her at the Abbey—where she should have been from the day she was old enough to wed.

  And then?

  Then he’d give her the key to her bedroom door with instructions to keep it locked at all times—and offer himself for every damned courier mission to the Continent he could possibly undertake.

  Today—all things considered—he’d been remarkably restrained with her. What would happen when he could have her behind closed doors—to which he had the key—when she would be at the mercy of his hideous obsession to punish all women for the sins of the one who had forever distorted and stolen his innocent joy in the act of love.

  The cold damp of the ground began to seep through his buckskins and he wondered how long they’d lain there, wrapped tightly together as if seeking assurance one from the other that what they’d done wouldn’t change anything about their world—or hiding from what must be faced now.

  Grimly Rogan sat up, pulled a limp, heavy-eyed Jassie upright beside him and busied himself working her beautiful, rosy breasts back into her corset and tying the strings of her chemise. It didn’t look like she was capable of doing it for herself, as if she might even be suffering from shock. Well, he could blasted well do it. It would prove, to himself at least, that he could touch her without turning into some wild ravening beast. He could, goddammit he could, he told himself through gritted teeth, as his fingers sank into the softness of her flesh, tucking the taut little nipples back behind the boned stuff of her corset. Jassinda Carlisle could very well be the death of him, he thought as he helped her to her feet and buttoned her shirt and jacket.

  Suddenly aware of cold air at his crotch, he tidied his own clothes while Jassie, eyes glowing like soft golden gems, watched his every movement as if she’d never seen a man—well, hell, of course she’d never seen a man buttoning his shirt and falls before. It seemed his own wits had gone begging.

  Respectable once again, his gaze was drawn back to hers. Dear God, she was temptation personified. Her hair had come loose from its careful arrangement and was an unraveled tangle down her back. He’d never seen her disheveled, at least not since she’d been a tomboy kid still in the schoolroom, and the sight almost undid all the good intentions induced by his shame and guilt. Gently he turned her as it seemed she’d completely lost her senses. God, had the shock of what he’d done cast her completely out of her mind? He dragged his fingers through the riot of golden curls, retrieving whatever pins were still tangled in it, twisted the mass back into some semblance of a bun and secured it with the pins as best he could. Hopefully anyone seeing her would think she’d simply been for a wild ride across the Downs.

  Or maybe, considering the state of her clothing, that she’d taken a spill off her horse. Where the hell was her hat, that jaunty military-styled shako that had looked so elegant atop her perfect coiffure when he’d met her this morning? Where was his own?

  He began casting about the hillside when he was stopped by her low, husky voice saying, ‘Thank you, Rogan. You’d make some woman a wonderful maid.’

  He finally allowed himself to look into her eyes and guilt stabbed painfully into his gut. Such love shone from her countenance that he could only think of running his heart through with a dagger. He had done nothing to earn that look, nothing to earn any regard from her except hatred or at the very least, disdain. She should be calling him every vile thing she could lay her tongue to. Instead, she looked at him as if—as if—he’d planted the standing stone on the Tor—just for her.

  Damnation! He was the lowliest varlet who had no right even breathing the same air. But the wrong had been committed and there was only one way of putting it right.

  ‘We will marry. Saturday a fortnight from now. I’ll ride back to London tomorrow and get the special license.’

  The sated kitten look lasted all of two seconds after he’d made his grand statement and then in the blink of an eye he was facing a feral, hissing she-cat.

  ‘Oh-no-we-won’t-Windermere!’ Each measured word was accompanied by a flash of fire from blazing topaz eyes and her use of his formal name said more than enough about the sudden change of her mood. ‘You’ll not turn that table on me now so that afterwards you can accuse me of trapping you into a marriage you didn’t want.—I know you have vowed never to marry. That is not what I was asking for.—I love you too well and value our friendship too deeply to allow you to make that sacrifice.’

  ‘If you’d truly valued our friendship you’d never have—’, he began but hearing the ugly snarl in his voice clamped his mouth shut and tried for a deep breath to calm the fury beating through his blood; fury directed not at the perfect, innocent being standing before him but at a woman from his youth whose every treacherous feature was carved across his soul in shame.

  ‘I wished to know! Only you could ever have redeemed that wish for me, Rogan, for not only did I wish to know, but I wished to know it with you. It is something I’ve been desiring and considering asking you for some time now, not some ill-considered whim of the moment!’

  ‘What if you are with child?’ he ground out.

  Her whole being sobered a little as she considered him and when she spoke again, it was in a quiet, gentle tone that vibrated across the chords of his heart with a terrifying temptation.

  ‘It would be my greatest joy to bear your child, Rogan.’

  The picture of her, belly swollen with his seed, engulfed his mind, undermining his resolve. She would have him on his knees begging before too long. That he couldn’t allow. She must be protected from him just as she must be protected from the vicious tattling dames of the ton.

  ‘You stupid damned wench! You’re ruined! Did you consider that i
n your ill-considering? And if you are pregnant—because at this very moment you could be!—you will never be received in polite society again. Certainly not in London and not even here in what stands for polite society in Neave!’ he yelled.

  The crack of her hand against his cheek was loud in the quiet of the hilltop and for a moment they both stood as if turned to stone, as rigid and unmoving as the great monolith itself. The chasm between them that yawned at his feet was not to be borne. She had been his lifeline, his only reason for living for so many years. If he could not see her, talk to her whenever he returned to the Abbey there would be no reason to continue with his life. Knowing she lived, would be pleased to see him when he returned, would listen and smile and laugh and touch his blackened heart with light was all he lived for. He could not lose that. He would not.

  And he’d not abandon her to the viciousness of society. It would be like tossing an innocent ewe lamb to a pack of wolves.

  Blindly he reached for her, pulled her close against his heart and pressed her face to his neck where he could feel her skin against his. She was the embodiment of his every dream and longing, all that he craved but could never possess, for in possessing it he would sully that which was bright and perfect. But he couldn’t live entirely without her in his life, had never been able to.

  ‘I cannot leave you to the mercy of the wolves, Jassie-my-love. Let me do this one pure and honorable thing that I can. Let me marry you and settle you into the Abbey where you rightfully belong as my Countess. Let me protect you. Then if there is a child he will be the rightful heir to the Windermere land and titles, not growing up with the hated stigma of illegitimacy. You would not want that for your child—our child.’ He could hardly keep his voice steady, so filled was he with yearning for the realization of a dream he’d long believed impossible. ‘I will not take no for an answer.’

  He gripped her shoulders and held her a little away from him to see what was in her eyes now, but she hung her head and there were fresh tears on her cheeks.

  ‘No one else would do to show you what is between a husband and a wife and yet—you do not wish to marry me?’

  ‘More than anything but—not like this. It is not what you want.’

  Her voice held the sulky undertones he remembered from the day Philip had blasted her out for sneaking his pistols out to shoot targets in the woods behind Brantleigh. She’d been thirteen and more responsibility than her poor young brother had wanted or known what to do with. They’d both been sick to their stomachs considering what might have occurred when a thirteen year old lass with no notion of fear was alone with a pair of dueling pistols.

  No more sick than he felt now, considering the outcome of this day that had begun with such innocent promise.

  ‘We should never have done what we did. More than that, I should not have allowed it to happen how it did. It was little short of rape. You might have some small inkling now of how I am, why I’ve been so careful to eschew marriage all these years.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He considered the innocence of her gaze. Dear God, pray she did not believe that was how the act of love should be consummated. Then again, what else did she know?

  ‘I was rough, totally lacking in consideration, or caring. A lady should not be subjected to such bestiality. It will not happen again. I vow to you.’

  A light went out in her eyes, leaving her countenance shuttered and devoid of animation.

  ‘Very well,’ she said, starting to cast about for her hat which had rolled further down the hill. She slipped from his grasp and picked up the shako, which looked very much as if Chester had put his large hoof right in the center of it.

  ‘Oh! How unfortunate!’ she cried in an utterly false voice. ‘My hat blew off and Chester trampled it. Guess I’ll never wear it again.—I’d appreciate a leg up, Windermere,’ she called over her shoulder as she caught up Chester’s reins.

  Rogan found his own hat lying upside down just beyond the crater where innocence had been tarnished and he’d acted in such a way as to negate the most solemn vow he’d ever made, jammed it on his head and strode down the hill to where Jassie waited by her horse. Clearly she was set to show the world and his worthless self that nothing of any note had occurred here today.

  She raised her foot for his hand. He ignored it, straightening the saddle and reaching for the girth to tighten it a few notches. Then he came upright and confronted her, holding her gaze with the fierceness of his scowl.

  ‘We go nowhere until you agree to be my wife.’

  Snapping her head back, she fixed him with eyes bright and hard like shards of amber glass.

  ‘I agree to be your wife,’ she snapped.

  ‘Saturday a fortnight from now.’

  ‘I’ve agreed. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘No. Saturday a fortnight from now.’

  ‘Very well! Saturday a fortnight from now. Now put me on this horse, Windermere, so I can go home.’

  ‘Wait.’ He tested the tension of the girth, tightened it a notch then without another word he cupped her raised boot with his hands and lifted her into the saddle.

  She was gone the moment her foot was in the stirrup. Rogan climbed back up to the fallen stone to watch her crazed flight, all the way down the broad flank of Neave Tor and across the rich bottom lands dotted with oaks and yews. He couldn’t relax his vigil until she disappeared behind the stable buildings at Brantleigh.

  ‘So,’ he muttered, dragging on his jacket and throwing himself down on the rock where she’d sat to deliver her startling request, ‘The Earl of Windermere takes a wife.’

  He picked up the neatly aligned pair of riding gloves Jassie had laid there earlier and ran them restlessly through his hands.

  How was he to keep himself away from her? What would become of them if he could not? She was everything that was bright, innocent and beautiful in his world. How could he prevent his husbandly attentions from changing that?

  Dobbie, Brantleigh Manor’s head groom was old enough to be Jassie’s grandfather. He took one look at the lathered horse and his mistress’s unusually disheveled state and his bushy brows came together in a way that had made her giggle as a child but which today only added to her agitation.

  ‘What happened, Miss Jassie?’ he growled. ‘Are ye hurt? Not like ye to blow yer horse—or take a tumble. Ye should be takin’ young Jem with ye, not ridin’ alone. Aren’t I al’ays tellin’ ye?’

  ‘I wasn’t alone,’ Jassie snapped before thinking. ‘Lord Windermere was with me.’

  It wasn’t until Dobbie’s brows bristled again that she realized what she’d revealed, and what that said about the state of her mind. If he rode with her, Rogan always saw her back to Brantleigh and often stayed for luncheon. Even less would Dobbie understand his neglect to do so if she had actually taken a tumble.

  The old man’s chest began to swell and his ancient jowls worked in his growing agitation. Jassie could almost see him wondering how much he could get away with saying with regard to such neglect on the part of the Earl.

  ‘Don’t start, Dobbie. We had a slight difference of opinion. None of it was the Earl’s fault. He’s probably sulking on Neave Tor—where I left him.’

  ‘Sounds more nor like a Banbury tale to me,’ Dobbie began muttering.

  ‘Are you doubting my word, Dobbie?’

  ‘Nay, Miss Jassie,’ he muttered. ‘T’wouldn’t think on it.’

  Jassie turned away from the darkened look that settled on the old man’s weathered features and ran her hand down Chester’s flanks, trying to hang on to her temper and not feel shame for her sharp words to her old retainer.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dobbie. Please give Chester a good rub down and a special treat. He’s carried me well today.’

  She couldn’t have the old man thinking ill of the loyal animal either, whatever that meant he now thought of her.

  Then turning on her heel before he could question her more, she hurried across the stable yard, through the ki
tchen gardens and in through the back of the house.

  In the back hallway she ran into the housekeeper, Mrs. Jolly, who, like Dobbie, had been at Brantleigh Manor since before its current mistress was born and had no qualms about tutting with horror at said mistress’s sadly disarrayed state.

  ‘Miss Jassie! What happened to you? You look as if—’

  Not wanting to get into any details with her doughty housekeeper, Jassie interrupted her shocked questioning and, adopting a very rare haughty tone, said, ‘Nothing that can’t be tidied up Mrs. Jolly. I’m fine and I’d be grateful if you would order a bath sent up immediately and—perhaps you could send Tilly to find Mrs. Lyndon and ask her to attend me in my rooms please.’

  Mrs. Jolly gave her young mistress a narrow look, pursed her lips and hurried off in the direction of the kitchen, muttering, ‘Yes, Miss Jassie, I’ll see to it straight away.’

  As soon as the housekeeper disappeared round the corner of the hallway Jassie grabbed up her skirts and took to her heels, pounding up the back staircase as if fire licked at the soles of her boots. The day was only falling from one disaster to the next. Not only had she ruined her friendship with Windermere and given him a terrible abhorrence for her but she’d also given the two most loyal and long-serving members of her staff at Brantleigh cause to be certain something more than a tumble had occurred that morning. They’d always watched out for her. Lord knew, she couldn’t expect that to stop just because she’d done something she’d rather they didn’t know about.

  Her flight didn’t slow until she reached her room at the far end of the east wing, threw herself through the door, across the thick and colorful Aubusson carpet to the deeply stuffed wing chair by the window. Sinking into its familiar comfort, she finally let her emotions wash over her. First to suffer for it was the flattened shako she still clutched in her hand. It flew across the room in the general direction of the fireplace and landed squarely in the empty grate. Next she attacked her boots, struggling, kicking and swearing in a rare unladylike fashion until she managed to tear them off and send them flying after the hat. As the second one landed with a satisfying thunk, the door opened a crack and Francine Lyndon peered cautiously around it.