“Don’t you mean the prodigal son?” Cleo asked.
Grier rolled her eyes. “Have some imagination.”
“You’ve more than enough for all of us,” Cleo returned.
Marguerite glanced back and forth. They seemed even better acquainted than before. A situation that only made her feel more distant from them.
As if she read her mind, Cleo stepped forward and hugged Marguerite. “We’re so glad you’ve returned. Forgive us for intruding on your privacy. Jack said you were not feeling quite the thing, but we could not resist checking on you. Our last visit was dreadfully brief. Oh, but I confess I’m thrilled you did not go to Spain. But then what a shame,” she clucked. “We could have spent Christmas together.”
Grier dropped inelegantly upon the bed as if she planned to remain for a good while. “I hope you plan to stay longer this time.” Grier plucked at an invisible thread on the counterpane. “Jack would no doubt appreciate a daughter more accommodating to his matchmaking efforts. We haven’t been the most successful.”
“Grier,” Cleo admonished. “Give it time. He’s paraded a score of gentlemen before us.”
“Then I suppose he should parade a score more, because thus far, this entire endeavor has been quite the disappointment. Why not toss a real man our way and cease with all these sniveling dandies?”
“I’m certain we shall meet acceptable gentlemen in due time,” Cleo assured her. “Jack is determined, if nothing else.”
Marguerite glanced around the elegant bedchamber that served as her prison. Indeed, they possessed no notion how determined their father could be.
Grier pulled a face. “Yes, well, we aren’t all as young as you. And this city air is making me itch.” She rubbed her arm. “I can’t stay here forever.”
Cleo rolled her eyes. “I suppose we must yet again narrow your excessive criteria. Shall you now require a gentleman in possession of a country estate?”
“Not a bad idea, that,” Grier muttered, still chafing her arm, either missing or ignoring Cleo’s derision. “Wouldn’t hurt you to raise your standards a bit, too. Don’t you want more than to simply escape that overcrowded nest you call home? As unpleasant as it is to share your bed with two little sisters, don’t forget you’ll be sharing your bed with some man … best take care he’s someone you can tolerate for the next fifty years.”
Marguerite watched the pair, listening raptly, fascinated with the notion that they had turned their lives over so readily to Jack Hadley. And yet it made sense. From their remarks, she gathered that their lives fell short on opportunities.
Cleo caught her looking and lifted one slim shoulder in a fatalistic shrug.
A loud commotion from somewhere within the house drew their attention. Marguerite cocked her head to the side, straining to listen to the distant voices.
“What’s that?” Grier asked, moving to the door. Feet pounded up the stairs like stampeding horses.
“Holy hellfire!” Grier sputtered, peering out into the corridor.
Almost in answer to this, a masculine voice shouted, “Marguerite! Marguerite, where are you?”
Her heart tripped at the familiar voice.
“Ash,” she murmured, her chest seizing.
Grier swung her incredulous gaze to Marguerite. “You know him?” she demanded. “Who’s Ash?”
“My husband,” Marguerite volunteered, the words easier to say than she had ever imagined. Especially now that she knew he had not forgotten her.
“Your husband?” Cleo shook her head. “Since when?”
“Since he abducted me on my last visit here.” She refrained from adding that it could have been any one of them he snatched that evening.
Cleo gasped, eyes rounding in horror.
“The wretch! Shall I dispatch him for you?” Grier’s hands curled into fists at her sides as if she would pummel the offending man herself. And somehow, Marguerite didn’t doubt she would. There was something very capable about the woman.
“Fetch the Guard!” Cleo exclaimed, looking prepared to bolt from the room to do that very thing.
Jack’s voice rang out then, loud and intractable, booming at the end of the corridor as he commanded his men to remove Ash from the house.
“Marguerite!” Ash bellowed yet again, and this time there was a desperate quality to his voice.
Marguerite squeezed past Grier in the doorway, her breath falling fast and hard, anxious to reach her husband. He had come. Ash had come for her.
Her stomach plummeted at the sight of him. He thrashed in the arms of several of her father’s men. Jack stood near, face mottled red with fury.
Ash surged with unsuppressed violence in the arms of his captors. Eyes locked Jack, he growled, spitting the words, “Marguerite is mine. You’ll have to bury me to stop me from coming for her.” One corner of his mouth curled with wicked threat. “And even then I may come for her.”
A shiver raced through Marguerite at that heated avowal.
Jack only looked more enraged at this. He swung a finger back in the direction of the stairs. “Get him out of here!”
Ash’s eyes found her, bright and alive, glittering darkly in his harshly handsome face. He brought to mind an avenging angel, fearsome and deadly in his beauty.
His lips moved, mouthing her name so quietly, appealing to her alone.
Her chest squeezed, an aching, twisting mass at its center. She stumbled forward, rushed into her fate with full awareness that she might be rushing to her doom. And not caring. She had to have him, craved him like a woman denied air for far too long. “Ash, wait!”
“Marguerite, get back in your room!” Jack barked.
She turned on her father, snarling. “You mistake yourself to think you have any authority over me.”
He blinked at her hissed words and waved roughly at Ash. “You can’t think he cares for you.”
“He’s here, is he not?” she retorted, thinking that meant something. To her, at that moment, it meant everything.
Jack laughed harshly, his eyes cold and pitying as they swept over her. “This isn’t about you. This is about me. About him and me. He’s here to protect his interests, to secure only a greater share of our business. You play no part, stupid girl.”
Ash broke from his captors then, charged Jack with a roar, connecting his fist to her father’s face with a sickening crack.
Marguerite jumped from the force of the blow, wincing.
Her sisters yelped behind her.
She blinked, frozen to stone, shocked at the image of her father crashing against the wall. A painting rattled loose, tumbling with a bang alongside him.
Even Jack’s henchmen didn’t move, gaping at their employer, the great King of St. Giles a broken pile upon the floor. Jack glared up at Ash, gingerly touching his bloodied lip.
Ash stood over her father. “You’ll not speak to her like that again,” Ash gasped, broad chest heaving with serrated breaths. Somehow in the scuffle his cheek had been scratched. A thin line of blood oozed just beneath his eye, making him look all the more feral, dangerous.
“What?” he bit. “The truth?”
“You’re the one who knows nothing. This isn’t about you anymore. Marguerite’s my wife now. Forever. You can’t undo that.”
Jack stared unblinkingly, as if he were seeing Ash for the first time. In some ways, she felt she was seeing him for the first time. Seeing and believing that this man cared for her. Needed her. Not because he wanted to prove something to her father, not because he wished to protect his assets, but because he needed her for himself.
Marguerite moved to Ash’s side. He wrapped a strong arm around her and pulled her closer, leading her away. She sent a small wave to her gawking sisters. They waved back, both wearing similar expressions of astonishment.
Marguerite and Ash walked down the corridor, descending the stairs side by side. She shivered when they stepped out into the chill night. Only then did she recall she wore a night rail.
Ash pulled
her close and folded her within his greatcoat. At the door to his waiting carriage, he swept her inside.
Sinking onto the comfortable squabs, she permitted him to bundle her up in a blanket. She was shaking, but it had little to do with the cold and everything to do with him.
He came for me.
She opened her mouth to speak, mutter some flippant remark about overprotective fathers, something to bring levity to the tension that weighed the air between them, but she didn’t get the chance. He finished tucking the blanket around her and lifted his hands to her face in one smooth movement, hauling her toward his mouth for a kiss that robbed her of words, breath, thought.
He slanted his lips over hers again and again, his tongue slipping inside her mouth, tasting of spicy drink and all that was him.
His kiss burned, consumed her, desperate and hungry like it was the first time, the last time they would ever kiss each other.
She arched against him with a restless mewl, sliding her fingers through his hair, drinking desire from the hot melding of their lips.
He groaned, deepening the kiss, lips fusing. Their teeth clanged with violent need. Pleasure raced through her, scalding her blood when he bit down on her lip. She bit him back. A shudder racked him, rippling through her. Their fingers moved over each other, roving, touching, groping with ungentle hands.
Her fingers flew to his breeches, moving feverishly, her need a desperate, hungry thing. Dark and feral, coppery-rich in her mouth. She closed around the silken length of him. They shuddered together, unified in their desire, their need for each other.
Her blanket fell to the side as he swung her around, planting her on his lap. Her night rail billowed out around her as her thighs slipped down on each side of his hips. He found her heat and she felt the bare tip of him prodding, seeking, pushing up inside her.
And then he was there. Filling her.
She surged at the sudden thrust of him inside her, clutching his shoulders as if he was her lifeline, as if she would never let go.
And she wouldn’t, she realized.
Not if she could help it. Not as long as she drew breath.
Gasping, sated, still shuddering from the power of his release, Ash flexed his hands over her sleek hips, loving the sensation of her satiny skin in his hands. He buried his face in her neck, inhaling her honey and milk scent, knowing this was the aroma he wanted to wake to every morning.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “A bed would have been more comfortable, I know. With you, I just can’t help myself.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m just as guilty.”
He lifted his head and stared at the dim shadow of her face. “Why did you leave with him?” His chest clenched as he recalled his feelings when he first found Marguerite gone from their bed. In that moment, his sense of loss had outweighed any fears he’d ever had of turning into his father, of losing all he’d built with Jack.
“He was insistent, and I didn’t want to drag Mrs. Harkens or any of the other servants into harm’s way—”
“It’s their duty to protect you, Marguerite.” He winced. It was his duty. He’d do better by her from now on. “You must believe you’re worth that protection.” Worth everything. He held her tighter. “Say I’ll never come home to find you gone. Never leave me,” he murmured. He would never again thrust her from him because he was too afraid of turning into his father.
When she said nothing, he lowered his forehead to hers. tasting her warm breath on his lips. He closed his eyes as a slight tremor passed through her and bled into him. Still, she said nothing.
Chapter 21
Marguerite woke the following morning to find Ash still in their bed. A first, to be certain. He had not crept from their bed like a thief in the night while she slept. He’d stayed. Warmth suffused her chest, spreading through her.
Her mind drifted to last night and his whispered request that she promise never to leave him. She had tried to speak, but could not summon the words. Not when she couldn’t yet believe them herself.
She glanced around the curtained bed, letting it sink in that this was her life. With him. No more genteel servitude, holding the hands of the dying as they faded from earth. This was her life for however long it lasted. A month or half a century.
Her hand crossed the space that separated them, covering his fingers where they curled on the bed beside her. She lay still for several moments, perfectly content, sated at this simple connection. She watched him in sleep, the dark gold of his hair tossed wildly about his head. She loved to run her fingers through the silken strands. His face appeared relaxed, the angles and hollows unguarded, less severe.
He’d carried her inside the house carriage as if she were fragile and treasured. Loved.
She wanted that. Wanted his love. Wanted to love him with no fearful specter hanging over her. She bit her bottom lip and eased up on one elbow, lightly stroking the back of his hand, trailing up his arm, tracing the corded muscle.
Before being dragged off to her father’s house, she had been in the process of venturing to see Madame Foster. She would not delay another day. She could not. She must see the diviner, must find hope that all she’d found with Ash would not vanish in an instant.
She could put it off no longer. How could she look at Ash, her heart full yet aching, without having done all she could? Without having done everything in her power? She could not be with him in earnest, with all freedom of heart, knowing she had not tried to safeguard her survival for as long as possible.
Slipping her hand from Ash, she eased from the bed, moving quietly about the room, dressing herself with one eye on her sleeping husband.
No matter what she learned from Madame Foster, she would have peace knowing she’d exhausted every avenue available. Following that, come what may, she would live each day to the fullest. Loving life. Loving Ash.
Dressed, she snatched a fistful of pins from her dressing table and took a final lingering glance at him before departing the room, hope brimming in her heart.
She’d found something with Ash. Something she’d never had before. Something she never knew to hope for. For the first time, her life was about more than caring for the needs of others. Her life was about … living. He woke her, made her feel alive. Ironic, considering she might soon be dead.
Her pace quickened down the corridor. She squeezed her eyes in a tight blink, fighting the burn at the backs of her eyes. God would not be so unkind to take her from him. Not now. Not yet.
Dawn scarcely tinged the air, filtering through the windows she passed. Her shadow stretched long before as she strode ahead, her hands lifted to her head, working the pins into her hair. Her clumsy efforts would have to suffice. She could not risk ringing for a maid. She’d never needed a maid to assist her before, after all. Calling for a carriage was out of the question, too. She could not leave a trail for Ash. Later, she would fabricate an excuse. Anything but the truth.
“Mrs. Courtland?” She practically jumped free of her skin at the voice.
Marguerite donned a falsely cheerful smile for the housekeeper. “Mrs. Harkens,” she breathed.
The craggy-faced woman looked Marguerite over, her thick brows lifting. Clearly, the sight of her walking boots peeping beneath her skirts and the cloak draped over her shoulders signified that she was venturing out.
Marguerite held her breath, convinced the housekeeper was on the verge of inquiring where she was going at this early hour. Instead, she said, “You’ve a caller. A lady awaits you in the drawing room. I told her it was too early, but she’s quite determined.”
“I’ll see her,” Marguerite quickly said, beyond curious who had called upon her.
Upon entering the drawing room, she located Grier’s willowy figure standing near the window.
“Marguerite,” she greeted, striding forward. “You are well? I slept not a wink last night for worry. Jack is quite convinced this Ash fellow has seduced your thinking—”
“I’m unharmed and here quite willingly. Didn’
t you notice that I left of my own accord yesterday?”
She waved a hand. “I said as much to Jack, but he claims you are too frightened—”
Marguerite snorted. “He merely wishes so. Do I appear frightened? Jack simply cannot abide that I’ve chosen a man he doesn’t approve.”
Grier nodded. “Oh, he simply can’t abide anyone marrying a daughter he seeks to sell off like chattel to an earl or a duke … or even a bloody prince,” this last she uttered with such heat that Marguerite wondered if there was not one such odious prince in Grier’s life, however far-fetched the notion.
The brown freckles on Grier’s cheeks stood out more than customary. She inhaled through her nose as though groping for composure. “Forgive me for calling so early, I merely wanted to assure myself that you are not being mistreated and sincerely here of your own will. Cleo will be greatly relieved, too. She thought your husband a veritable brute yesterday.”
Marguerite smiled. “She’s not too far off the mark.”
“Well,” Grier said a bit gruffly, “I hope he makes you happy.”
Marguerite smiled, then frowned, her thoughts drifting as ever to her uncertain future.
“Did I say something to offend you?” Grier touched her hand, her warm eyes full of concern.
And that was all it took to completely undo her.
Marguerite crumbled, sank down on the sofa, hot tears dripping down her cheeks. Grier followed her down and wrapped her in her arms. Mortifying as it was to lose her composure to tears, the embrace comforted her. Her sister was warm and yielding and smelled of chocolate. “There now.” Grier’s hand smoothed slow circles on Marguerite’s shuddering back. “Don’t cry.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then tell me.”
Releasing a deep breath, Marguerite did. Like a dam opened, everything poured out, the words a burning rush. Even as incredible as it sounded to her ears, she told her wide-eyed half sister all. She didn’t stop once or come up for air until she had unburdened herself.
“Holy hellfire,” Grier breathed at the end of it all.
Marguerite swiped at her sniffling nose and nodded grimly. “And now you think I’m mad—straight for Bedlam.”
Wicked Nights with a Lover Page 17
