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

by Jen YatesNZ

  Painfully aware that all she wore were cream stockings and pale satin slippers, Jassie was incapable of forming a thought, let alone speaking. Her mouth seemed to be frozen in a silent gasp.

  When he came at her with his handkerchief in his hands she opened her mouth wider to scream. He stopped it with his hand, then before she could angle her teeth to bite, he deftly wrapped the cloth across her mouth and twisted the ends behind her head, turning her roughly to knot it tightly before shoving her back into the pillows.

  A strange rough sound emanated from his throat and then he bent his head and began devouring her breasts in an assault that instantly sent her blood from freezing to boiling point. She uttered a wild incoherent cry, muffled by the gag. He sucked harder until she was writhing and moaning then bit sharply, first one breast then the other until she screamed helplessly against the gag.

  It was all happening so fast, the sensations firing like rockets in her brain, that Jassie couldn’t make sense of any of it. Even the pain seemed too fantastical to be real. Suddenly he rolled her onto her stomach, shoved her up the bed so her face was thrust among the pillows. Grabbing some, he shoved them under her hips, pushed her knees high and wide until she was shamefully exposed to him. Then without warning his hand crashed across her backside in a hard open slap.

  She yelped into the pillows and tried to roll away from him but he pushed her back as she’d been and held her down with a hand on her back while he thrashed her as she’d never been thrashed in her life. Dear God, where was this going to end? Somewhere amid the pain Jassie felt a terrible excitement build and threaten inside her but it was kept at bay by the ugly names he was calling her, words she’d never heard before but knew she should never be subjected to. So this was what he’d been trying to protect her from!

  But even as the thought formed it was cleansed from her mind by a rush of violent ecstasy from some impossibly deep place in her belly that spread and engulfed her whole being until she was screaming into the pillows and begging, begging, ‘Rogan please, Rogan please.’

  Over and over.

  And finally he was there behind her on the bed, thrusting into her even harder and deeper than he had on Neave Tor and for a few moments out of time her crazy body exulted that at last he had given himself to her. At last the real Rogan Wyldefell, Earl of Windermere was truly her husband. His shout of release and the final violent thrust of his body was a symphony playing in her heart.

  ‘I love you, Rogan,’ she sobbed. She could not have stopped the words if he’d held a sword to her throat. Even muffled he could not but interpret what she was trying to say.

  His body went momentarily rigid above her then he leapt off the bed leaving her once again exposed and humiliated. She rolled off the pillows, hands still tied above her head and tears dribbling down her cheeks, and lay watching him as he rebuttoned his falls with stiff uncoordinated movements. When he looked up at her his eyes were that strange shade of silver horror she’d first noted on Neave Tor and his mouth a trenchant dark slash in a stark white face.

  ‘Don’t-ever-threaten-to-restrain-me-or-I’ll-not-be-responsible-for-my-actions.’

  He untied the cravat from the bed and her hands, taking care not to touch her, it seemed. Wrapping it twice round his neck and shoving the ends inside his jacket, he picked up the knife and stowed it back down his boot then strode for the door.

  He left without another word, the door slamming behind him and she lay staring at it as his boots clattered into silence down the back stairs.

  Chapter 5

  Blood roaring in his head, Rogan took the stairs at a headlong pace, uncaring whether he fell and broke his cursed neck.

  ‘What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?’

  No other thought would form in his head. Exiting onto a path at the back of the Abbey, the cool night air struck his heated face, threatening the return of sanity. Desperate to outrun anything approaching normality, whereby he’d have to confront the horror of his actions, he strode down the path to the stables as if Fouché or one of his minions dogged his heels. He deserved to be thrown to them like the cowardly dog he was.

  Bart’s voice came out of the darkness shrouding the stable entrance.

  ‘That took longer than you said it would. Get the better of you, did she?’

  A step closer and Rogan could see his cousin leaning nonchalantly against the doorway. His grin was a white slash in the shadows. Without conscious thought, Rogan’s fist connected with the gleaming white teeth, smacking the dark head back against the wall with a satisfying thunk of bone on wood.

  Before the gratification reached his brain Bart’s fist flew out of the darkness, connected with his chin and slammed him on his backside in the dust.

  He sat for a moment, rubbing his smarting chin and wondering why, when his brain was frozen in the desire for revenge and punishment, that he forgot the power and accuracy of Bart’s left hook.

  ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck it all to hell!’ he ground out, feeling as if each word tore out a piece of his intestines. He stood up, faced his cousin and said, ‘You want more of that? I’m in the mood to go a round or two and I’m just ugly-minded enough to slam you into oblivion and enjoy every moment of it.’

  Bart pushed himself away from the wall he’d been leaning against, planted his feet barely twelve inches away from Rogan’s and clenched his fists at his side.

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you, Windermere?’ he thundered. ‘First of all you’re adamant you don’t intend to bed your brand new bride—and God knows, I’d happily bed her for you if you’ve got a problem. She’s a damn prime article, not some spotty-faced chit!—And then, you’ve been with her long enough to bed her when you said you’d only be as long as it took to see her upstairs. Then,’ he continued, stopping only to suck in air, ‘you come at me out of the night like a blasted Myrmidon, eyes blazing and fists swinging like a battering ram! Did she turn the tables on you? Tell you where to stick your randy prick because she’s worried about where it’s been? Or is it the opposite? You only married her to save her from a scandal of another man’s making? For, let’s face it, Windermere, if you’d wanted to marry Jassinda Carlisle, you’d have done it years ago. She’s as near an ape leader now as makes no difference.’

  He drew breath again and waited, as if expecting Rogan to interrupt. Every word twisted and stabbed at Rogan’s guts as if his belly writhed with snakes. But he couldn’t speak to stop the flow; knew he deserved every vilifying word Bart was moved to shove down his throat. Slowly he came to his feet but when it became obvious he couldn’t get a word through his clenched jaws, Bart continued.

  ‘That’s the gossip in town, in case you’re wondering! Been spreading like wildfire since you put the notice in the Times. Probably the only reason a bet hasn’t been written in the book at White’s is because they can’t figure who the cur is who could’ve got Jassinda Carlisle pregnant if it wasn’t you!’

  Rogan’s fist left his side again before he knew it. He would close Bart’s filthy mouth and satisfy his own urge for violence at the same time. Bart smacked him back on his arse again. Having a healthy respect for Windermere’s title and status as his employer, his cousin didn’t usually release the full power of his swing against him but Rogan had to admit tonight was exceptional. He wouldn’t pull his punches either, if he was Bart.

  His cousin now stood over him, rocking on his heels, fists ready.

  ‘Come on, Windermere. Get up if you want to fight. I’m not averse.’

  Rogan stayed where he was, pulled up his knees and laid his head on his crossed arms.

  ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ was all he could say.

  Sanity had returned. Tonight he’d managed to alienate almost everyone that mattered to him. There was only his mother left. How long before his ugliness gave her a disgust of him too?

  ‘I’m just a mongrel dog, Bart! I’m sorry. If you were to ask Jassie, I’ve no doubt she’d agree. I’ve just proved I was right to avoid marrying her all those ye
ars. Years through which her loyalty could never have been in doubt—yet still she wanted—still she cared. Well, I guess I’ve taken care of that now.’

  Bart hunkered down before him, grabbed his hair and yanked his head up.

  ‘What did you do to her?’ he asked, horror making his voice harsh.

  Rogan stared up into Bart’s eyes. He knew they were hazel. It was the main disparity in their appearance. But in the shadows of night they just glowed like black coals.

  ‘I tied her up, thrashed her as if she were some hardened miscreant, then I raped her. Now you know why I didn’t want to marry her.’

  Bart’s mouth dropped open then snapped shut. But he didn’t question as to whether Rogan was jesting or not.

  ‘No I bloody don’t!’ he snarled. ‘Jassie Carlisle is the most—lady-like—lady I know! Why would you use her like that? For Christ’s sake, Windermere, what the devil is wrong with you!’

  ‘I’m damned, damned, damned,’ Rogan groaned, jerking his hair out of Bart’s grip.

  Bart dropped to his backside in the dust before him, as if disbelief had stolen the stiffening from his legs. After a long, glaring silence, he said, ‘All right, Cousin, here’s the deal. You’re going to tell me exactly what is going on with you and you’d better have a damned good reason to treat a beautiful, genteel woman like Jassie Carlisle in that way—or I ride out of here tonight and you’re on your own—after I’ve punched you senseless! I can’t work for an asshole like that.—Why?—That’s what I want to know, because the man I’ve always believed you to be could not have done what you just said you did.’

  Seeing Bart bristling with horror at this glimpse into his dark, secret world, Rogan wondered if he could break away from his deeply ingrained habit of silence. Could he expose that ugly, inner darkness; explain to his cousin, and very good friend, what he’d become—and how? What would Bart’s reaction be then?

  Could he begin to imagine his life without Bart—as well as without Jassie? For marriage notwithstanding, he’d definitely lost Jassie. There were few women who would accept the treatment he’d dished out unless they were being paid for it—or played on the perverted fringe of society which was the only place he socialized these days.

  Dragging his hand over his face he realized it was starting to stubble with beard, another inconsideration he’d visited on Jassie. He struggled to his feet.

  ‘Let’s ride, Bart. We’re sitting in the dirt like a couple of gypsy brats. I’ll talk as we go.’

  ‘I’ll have your oath on that, Windermere, or I’m not moving.’

  ‘My oath, is it? When did you start mistrusting my word?’ Rogan growled.

  ‘Since you became someone I never met before.’

  He couldn’t argue with that.

  ‘You have my oath,’ he said tersely. ‘Are the horses ready? Where are Buckton and the others?’

  ‘I sent them back to the Abbey. Miss Jassie, that is, her Ladyship, has done the staff proud, Buckton tells me, with their own celebration in the servants’ hall. So I sent them off to enjoy the first celebration seen at Windermere in a long time.—The horses are ready.’

  Rogan winced at the unspoken inference that nothing good had happened for the Windermere staff until Jassie had had the right to order it, then silently turned into the stable where a single lantern offered a feeble light, to lead out Raven.

  About to ask after his cloak, hat and gloves, Bart handed them to him. He dragged them on, mounted up and headed down the Elm Drive, Bart close on his heels.

  No word passed between them as they negotiated the cold, dark tunnel beneath the ancient trees. But when they exited through the stone gate pillars and had given Marsh, the gate-keeper, leave to return to the celebrations at the servants’ hall, Bart settled down into his saddle and said, ‘Now Cousin, let’s have it.’

  Gazing briefly up at the stars that twinkled serenely above, wishing that somehow he could borrow some of that serenity, Rogan focused on the road ahead between Raven’s ears and began.

  ‘I always knew I’d marry Jassie one day. At least from the time she was five and splattered the two of us with a rotten bird’s egg because she was too impatient to listen to my instructions on how to blow it.’ His voice softened, sounded a bit soppy even to his own ears. But it was a precious memory. ‘The damn thing was so bad that in short order we were both casting up our accounts and Carlisle was rolling on the grass, laughing like a drainpipe. I cleaned myself up as best I could—and her—and then I just sat there with her small, precious self draped against my chest while we waited to see if our stomachs had settled. Carlisle kept exploding into chortles of unholy glee.

  ‘Something changed in the dynamics between us three that day. Until then it had always been him and me agin her. Christ, she was only a baby! Eleven years younger than us, five to our sixteen and she used to follow us round like a damned pet rat—and so I often told her. Especially after her mother died when she was not yet six. But it was like we’d forged an unbreakable bond over that rotten bloody egg. That day I knew she was to be mine. Though truth to tell, I’d loved her since the day her nurse placed this tiny bundle—no bigger than a rat—in my eleven year old arms—and she bloody looked at me and grinned like—like I was the reason she’d been born. My heart has been in her keeping ever since. I just had to wait for her to grow up.’

  Rogan fell silent, thinking about the years waiting for Jassie to grow from the full-blown tom-boy she’d been even at five. Quite often over those years he and Philip had forgotten she wasn’t a younger brother to be taught all the things young men taught their younger male siblings.

  And then she’d started to change and the hints of the beautiful young woman she would become began to appear. It was then his mother had become more assertive in preventing them from carting Jassie everywhere they went about the estates and often well beyond.

  She’d sulked and fought against the lady-like strictures the Countess had imposed. By the time she’d begun to truly blossom into womanhood he’d lost the right to even think of taking her to wife when she was ready.

  ‘You loved her,’ Bart declared. ‘You do still. It’s quite obvious. So that’s only the beginning of the story.’

  Rogan sighed. Sometimes he felt so old.

  ‘Yeah.’

  His mind went off at a tangent again, dredging up image after image of Jassie; at ten, dressed in black at her father’s funeral, her small cold hands clenched firmly round his and Philip’s. His mother had tried to veto her attendance but Philip had made his first decision as her guardian and decreed that if she wished to make her farewells to their father as he was able to, then she should. At thirteen, wearing trousers and riding astride the new dappled mare Philip had bought for her, hair in pigtails as she galloped between them over the Downs, her eyes and cheeks glowing with excitement. At sixteen, suddenly confident of her womanliness as displayed in the beautiful cream muslin empire line gown tied under her enticingly rounded breasts with golden yellow ribbon. He should not have touched her then but had been unable to forego what she so sweetly and innocently offered. He’d learnt to keep his distance since that night—

  ‘I’m waiting, Windermere,’ Bart snarled.

  ‘Yeah,’ he muttered again. ‘Damn it! You don’t know what you ask, Matthews.’

  Bart’s chin tilted forward belligerently. They rarely used the formal address. They were cousins. Rogan didn’t care. He wasn’t feeling particularly chummy with his cousin right at this moment.

  ‘I’ve never revealed this to anyone and if I ever hear so much as a whisper of it—from any quarter—I will punch you senseless. In fact I’ll probably kill you.’

  ‘You have my silence.’

  Rogan didn’t question it. There was no one more arrow-straight than his secretary.

  ‘I boarded in the house of a professor when I went to university. His young wife was every twenty-one-year-old’s wet dream.’

  His nostrils flared with the outrage he felt as the image of
Adelaide Barratt floated before his eyes, all creamy curves, titian-colored hair, and sultry green, feline eyes.

  ‘And you were easy prey.’

  ‘I was.’ Rogan ground his teeth on the admission. ‘Trouble was she wasn’t satisfied just to be thoroughly pleasured in the normal way and began harassing me to let her introduce me to–some deviant stuff. Dammit! I was a stupid, horny young bastard and never in my life had I thought to turn down sexual favors. But I wasn’t into the kind of diversions she was talking about—and so I told her. I was stupid enough to think I could control the situation and still get my regular grind which was all I thought about at that age.’

  Bart’s derisive snort brought him out of the story for a moment.

  ‘You were just a randy young prick!’

  ‘And you weren’t?’ Rogan bit back defensively.

  ‘Of course I was but I’d grown up in a tougher school than you. Sometimes wealth and position are not all that advantageous.’

  Rogan grimaced into the darkness and considered Bart’s wisdom. For it was true, he might have fared better had he not learnt to think of himself as privileged and deserving of every consideration, especially from the lower class comely women who were available to him and not shy about showing it.

  ‘So what did the bitch do to you?’

  A sigh rasped through Rogan’s whole being. How many times had he wished he could go back and undo the events of that night, create a different scenario with a different outcome? Behave, perhaps, as the man his parents had raised him to be instead of some muff-hungry idiot who thought his every sexual need should be assuaged—on demand.