The Offer

by Catherine Coulter

  “It’s been nearly a week now. It seems much longer, truth be told.”

  He wondered, looking down at her, what would have happened if he hadn’t gone to one of his northern estates after her refusal of him at Moreland. If he’d been in London at the time of her ruin, would he, like Phillip, have tried yet again to convince her to marry him? He didn’t fault Phillip for his course of action; he only wished that it had been he who had been her rescuer. He saw that she was looking at him, a clear question in those incredible eyes of hers, and quickly changed the topic.

  “I visited Monmouth Abbey again before coming to London. Your grandfather does much better. That weasel cousin of yours assured me a dozen times if he assured me once that the earl would recover. Trevor really is a paltry fellow, Sabrina, but I swear to you that I didn’t knock his teeth down his throat. I did, however, grab the weasel by his cravat and lift him a good six inches off the floor and shake him until his head snapped.”

  She grinned up at him. “That was well done of you. Actually, I’d like to do that, too. I had another letter from Grandfather just yesterday. He sounds better. Thank you for going there, Richard. It’s very kind of you. Did you visit with him?”

  “Yes, briefly. His color is better. He’s very pleased that you’re safe.”

  He saw that she didn’t want to ask, and said quickly, “Yes, I also saw Elizabeth. She appears to enjoy being mistress of the manor. But you know as well as I do that it has to be one of her only pleasures. It’s becoming common knowledge that Trevor indulges himself with the Monmouth servants. And Elizabeth knows it. Every day he is less discreet. I heard that he was even bedding her maid, Mary.”

  “But does Trevor at least treat her well in public?”

  “Yes, he’s not altogether stupid. I’m glad you’re out of that household.”

  “Poor Elizabeth,” she said. “She doesn’t deserve to be tied to a man like him, no woman does. I told her the truth but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “I don’t remember Elizabeth ever listening to anybody. You’re still too thin, Sabrina.”

  “Give me time, Richard,” she said easily. “Phillip tells me that if we go to Dinwitty Manor, the cook there will make me fat as a flawn within a week.”

  “He’s right. It’s a dangerous place to go.” She felt his hand tighten about her waist and blinked at him. His dark eyes glittered.

  Richard wished now that he hadn’t come. There was still a tug of attraction for her. It was still too strong for his own peace of mind. Although he enjoyed married ladies, the thought of flirting with Sabrina, of trying to seduce her, was distasteful to him and that smacked of a morality he didn’t want to see in himself. “Your ball is a success.”

  “Yes. Phillip has done well by me, don’t you think?”

  “You don’t sound very pleased. What’s wrong? Aren’t you happy?” His grip tightened about her fingers.

  “Of course I’m happy. It’s also a good thing that I’m no longer that silly young girl from Yorkshire.”

  The waltz drew to a close. Richard drew her hand through his arm, his fingers warm and caressing over hers. “Come, Sabrina, let us try some of your punch. I heard from one very happy lady that there’s superb champagne in it. Phillip’s cellars have an excellent reputation.”

  She nodded, looking for her husband from the corner of her eye. She finally saw him in laughing conversation with a striking girl whose name she couldn’t remember.

  Suddenly there was a rending sound. Sabrina stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh, drat, just look what I’ve done. My beautiful gown, I’ve caught the hem and ripped it. Do forgive me, Richard. I must go fix it.”

  “Allow me to fix it for you, Sabrina. I’m really quite accomplished at such tasks, you know.”

  She couldn’t imagine how that could be so.

  “Come, trust me.”

  Sabrina shook her head, laughing. “You and Phillip are like two peas from the same pod. The both of you must always have the last word. Very well, there’s a small room just down the corridor that should provide you, me, and my flounce sufficient privacy.”

  Phillip watched Sabrina and Richard Clarendon leave the ballroom. What was going on?

  He excused himself from Miss Patterson, and made good his escape from the ballroom. He saw Sabrina laugh up at Richard and walk away with him down the corridor toward the back of the house. Although he hated what he was doing, he still walked after them. He saw Sabrina open the door to the small room she’d just begun using for her own private parlor and close it after her.

  His fists clenched at his sides and he felt cold fury wash over him. He admitted to himself that his invitation of a man who’d been a good friend for many years had been in the nature of a test. He simply had to know if Sabrina cared anything about the marquess. He wasn’t proud of himself. But there it was. He’d said nothing, done nothing. He’d simply let them do what they wanted to do. He’d simply watched them go into that room. He’d simply watched the damned door close.

  Her behavior was inexcusable. He was angrier than he’d been in a very long time. He turned on his heel and strode back to the ballroom.

  In the small ladies’ room, Sabrina was laughing as she said, “Some assistant you are, Richard, just look at what you’re doing.” He was actually on his knees in front of her sticking pins in strategic places in the ripped hem.

  Their heads were nearly touching.

  He looked up. He couldn’t seem to stop staring at her mouth. “Consider me both your inspiration and your servant.”

  “No, that pin is all crooked. Here.” She was laughing when she took the pin from him. She jabbed her finger.

  “Oh, goodness, look what I’ve done.” She put the injured finger in her mouth.

  “Now I can truly be of assistance, Sabrina.” Richard knelt up in front of her, taking the finger and inspecting it. A small drop of blood welled up. Without thought, he licked it away, then gently kissed the finger.

  Sabrina sat very quietly, gazing down at his bent head. “Richard.” She stopped. She didn’t know what to say. She looked down at the handsome man who was kneeling in front of her. She felt embarrassed and strangely ashamed.

  He groaned, dropped her hand as if it were something to bite him, and rose quickly. He ran his hand distractedly through his hair.

  “I’m sorry, Sabrina. I didn’t mean to do that.”

  Sabrina rose and placed her hand on his sleeve. “Please, it’s all right, Richard. It’s forgotten. You’re an excellent friend and—”

  “Dammit, I never wanted to be your bloody friend. You know I would have married you, despite what happened between you and Phillip.”

  She raised her head and looked him straight in his dark eyes. “I’m no longer a virgin, as of four nights ago. I now know what men do to women. Phillip did it to me three times. So, what I find absolutely astounding is that anyone with any sort of brain at all would think that a woman would willingly let a man do those things to her. It’s ridiculous. If you honestly believe that while I was very ill I let Phillip somehow seduce me, then you’re an idiot, Richard, very simply, an idiot.”

  He was treading on very swampy ground, but Richard Clarendon was a man used to speaking his mind. Her words didn’t make sense. “You mean to tell me that Phillip didn’t please you? Sabrina, Phillip is an experienced man. He isn’t a clod. This is impossible. He made love to you three times and you had no pleasure with him?” He realized then what he was saying. Her face was perfectly white. She looked both pale and ill and ready to kill. “I’m sorry, forgive me. That wasn’t something I should have said. I could have thought it but not said it.”

  He ran his hand through his hair again. “You’re in love with him and yet he hasn’t pleased you. That’s astonishing, truly it is, if you but realized it.” Suddenly the impropriety of the situation struck him forcibly. In her innocence, she’d thought nothing of accompanying him to this room, alone. All she needed at this point was more vicious gossiping. And just lo
ok what had happened. No fault of hers. All his. He smiled at her very gently, slowly lifted her hand, and lightly kissed her fingers. “I’m a fool. Everything will right itself, Sabrina, you will see. Now, I must take my leave. You must return to the ballroom and your guests before you’re missed. Good-bye.”

  He turned on his heel and left the room, leaving her to stare after him.

  At two o’clock in the morning Sabrina was so weary that she could barely restrain her yawns as Doris brushed out her hair. Her bedchamber door opened suddenly and Phillip’s reflection appeared in her mirror.

  He dismissed her maid. He didn’t say a word until Doris was out of the room. Then he kicked the door closed with the heel of his boot.

  She smiled at him in the mirror. “You’ve sent away the final guests?” Sabrina turned in her chair and looked at him with some surprise. He wasn’t smiling back at her. He didn’t look at all tired. He looked angry.

  “Yes, they’re all gone. The champagne punch is gone as well. Greybar is so tired I thought he’d collapse in the entry hall.” He sprawled into a chair opposite her and began to tap his fingertips together.

  “We only waltzed two times, Phillip. I’d hoped for more, perhaps six times would have been sufficient for me. Indeed, you were slathering your charm on so wondrously that I didn’t think the ladies would ever let you out of their sight.”

  He waved away her words. He said slowly, his voice low and careful, “You, at least, had the good sense to return to the ballroom before the gossips took notice.”

  It took her a moment to realize what he was saying. She just shook her head at him. “I tore the flounce on my gown and had to pin it up. If you’d only asked me to dance when I got back to the ballroom, I would have told you that.”

  “Did you come up with that or did Richard?”

  She became very still.

  “I don’t blame you for keeping quiet. I wouldn’t tell me either. Unfortunately for you, Sabrina, I saw you go to that very private little room of yours with Richard Clarendon.”

  “What are you saying, my lord?”

  “How formal you’ve become, but perhaps the situation warrants it. What I’m saying, Sabrina, is that I gave you the opportunity to prove your indifference to Clarendon but you did just the opposite. You waltzed with him, then immediately left with him.”

  She slowly rose from the stool, her face flooding with angry color. “You’re saying that Richard was here so you could conduct some sort of test?”

  “Yes. You didn’t pass.”

  “I don’t believe this, Phillip, I truly don’t. You have the gall to tell me that you didn’t ever believe me when I told you I had no interest in Richard? You have the further gall to tell me that’s the only reason he was here? To tempt your wife?”

  “No, of course not.” He rose, staring at her, his hands at his sides. “I can well control my own wife without recourse to subterfuge.”

  “If this wasn’t subterfuge, then what was it?”

  “It was nothing more than an opportunity for you to prove yourself to me. As I said, you failed. Now I must question your feelings toward Clarendon.”

  “If I had a knife, I’d stab you in your faithless hypocritical heart! You bastard, I’m not the faithless one here, it’s you. You throw Richard up at me with no evidence of anything at all, yet you even call me by your own damned mistress’s name. It’s Martine, damn you!”

  She picked up a scent bottle and hurled it at him. Then she wanted to kill him because he laughed and ducked it, then laughed harder. Then he stopped laughing. He said, “I am a man. You are my wife. You will obey me and you will not even consider being unfaithful.”

  She was shuddering with rage. No, she didn’t want to throw anything else at him. It was childish. She had to use her wits, but it was difficult, for he made her so angry her brain dissolved into red mist. She drew several deep breaths. “I want you to leave, Phillip. I can’t deal with any more of this now.”

  He walked to her and took her arms in his hands. He shook her slightly until she looked up at him. “You will deal with anything I tell you to. You are my wife, this is my house.”

  “You are my husband.”

  “Certainly. You will always have the protection of my name. I simply shan’t allow you to tarnish it. Listen carefully to me, Sabrina. I will not tolerate Richard Clarendon as your lover, or any other man for that matter.”

  “I told Richard that I was no longer a virgin. Naturally he believed that you’d taken my virginity when I was vilely ill at the hunting box. I set him straight. I told him that you’d taken me three times and that I found it ridiculous for anyone to believe that a woman could ever be willingly seduced. It is humiliating and wretched what men do to women, what you did to me. I don’t want a lover, Phillip. It’s laughable even to think about it.”

  He looked utterly appalled. “You told Richard that I didn’t give you pleasure?”

  She could only stare up at him. She would never understand a man’s mind. Her chin went up as high as she could get it. “I told him you were a clod.”

  “No,” he said slowly, studying her pale face, “no, you love me. You would never tell another man something that would lessen my worth.”

  “None of this makes any sense. I either love you, in which case, how could I ever think to take a lover?”

  “I don’t know if you really love me. I think it’s just infatuation, which might lead you astray, as in leading you directly to Richard. He has a way with women, I know that, only I do wish that you hadn’t told him I’d been a clod. I wasn’t, really, it’s just that because of what Trevor did to you, you’re still frozen and—” His eyes were on her face now. He didn’t say anything more, just stared down at her. He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek.

  “So soft,” he said, then leaned down to kiss her. She leapt back.

  “How can you want to do that to me when you think I’m a horrible woman?”

  “No, it’s just possible that perhaps you could be led down a path that would end in a place that wouldn’t be good for you, a place I wouldn’t like you to be.”

  She said flatly, “You sound like a jealous husband, Phillip. Where there is no love—and surely you have none for me—then the ground must be too arid to cultivate such a feeling.”

  “I will never be jealous of a woman, particularly if the woman is my damned wife. I won’t be cuckolded, Sabrina. You had your flirtation with Clarendon this evening, but there it will end. I would that you contrive to show some gratitude after all I have done for you.”

  She’d sworn never to throw anything again, but she just had no control over the hand that reached down and grabbed her hairbrush. She watched that hand rise, then hurl the hairbrush at him. It hit him on the jaw, a clean hit, that caused him pain. The hairbrush bounced off and hit the carpet at his feet. He didn’t say anything, just rubbed his jaw.

  “You’re a fool, Phillip. Get out of my room.”

  “Not just yet, madam.” He was on her in the next instant. He threw her over his shoulder and walked to her bed. He pulled her over his legs and struck her with the flat of his hand. She tried to rear up, but he just smacked her again.

  She cursed him but he just laughed. He gave her one extra smack, then pulled her to her feet to stand beside him.

  “In the future when you throw things at me, this will be your punishment. Next time, I’ll pull up that gown and petticoat of yours and you’ll feel my hand. This was nothing, so don’t you ever throw it up to me. Good night, Sabrina.”

  He left her room without a backward glance. She yelled after him, “To think I actually believed living with you here was preferable to that miserable hotel. What a fool I was.”

  The door slammed open and he stuck his head in. “Don’t push me, Sabrina.”

  “Push you? I’ve done nothing to you if you but had the brain to realize it.”

  She was standing there, panting, and he heard the dreadful pain in her voice. He couldn’t stand it. He st
epped into her bedchamber. “Sabrina,” he said, his hand stretched out toward her.

  She gave a small cry and ran to the other side of the bed. It gave her courage and both of them knew it. “You’ve said, my lord, that this is your house. Tell me, how much would you say that this bedchamber is worth? I would gladly pay you for it. Perhaps then you would stop reminding me how I must be grateful to you.”

  “You may have this room. Good night again, Sabrina.”

  “So you don’t want to hear about how I made Richard follow me to that private room, how I locked the door against the curious, and how, despite his noble protests, I seduced the Marquess of Arysdale? It’s in my blood, don’t you think? After all, I did spend five days and nights with you. Yes, I’m a trollop, no doubt about that. I want to bed every man I meet after the enjoyment it brought me to be bedded by you. All that pleasure has driven my slut’s soul to seek more and more. Richard is so very dark and brooding, I’ll wager any number of ladies are after him. It makes my palms itch to touch him, just thinking about him.”

  Phillip kept his mouth shut. He heard the hysterical pitch in her voice. He merely nodded to her and shut the door behind him. She stood there, staring at that door, biting her lip, her eyes bright with tears she prayed wouldn’t fall. She wouldn’t cry for him.

  No, she would never cry again.

  37

  He said to her over luncheon three days later, “Listen to me, Sabrina. We live in the same house. But when I see you, you simply look through me. You’re agreeable, I won’t deny that, but you’re just not here. You avoid me. It’s enough. There’s no reason for this false submissiveness of yours. It’s driving me mad. I want you to change.”

  She’d set down her fork and looked at him with great seriousness as he spoke, all her attention seemingly focused on him. But he knew it wasn’t true. It was in that instant that he decided to take her to Dinwitty Manor. Out of London, away from all the cursed memories. Things would be different at Dinwitty. Cook could stuff food into her face, food that was ambrosia. She could help him design his tower. He hadn’t looked at his drawings since last summer. But he was getting the itch again. He was ready now to begin again. He loved to build. He wondered if Sabrina would enjoy all the planning, watching the builders curse and sweat and fashion what he’d drawn. He’d write to Rohan and Susannah and invite them to come visit. Yes, that’s what he’d do.