by Gina Conkle
His wife studied him over her shoulder, her coffee-dark eyes fathomless and quiet. Her mouth tilted in the tiniest frown.
He pushed up on one elbow and caressed the corner of her mouth. “What’s this? Are you sad?”
“Not at all.” She bent forward and plucked her shift off the floor, giving him the sweetest view of her heart-shaped bottom.
His breath caught. Did she have any idea how beautiful she was? How amazing a young woman she was?
Light shined through Genevieve’s mussed curtain of hair before she tossed it back and slid off the bed. The plush bed beckoned him back to fold himself around her and lose their twined bodies on a cloud of bliss. Sex and sleep. Or sleep and sex. He didn’t care which order as long as they were cozy and naked together.
Instead, his new wife picked up her clothes.
“There’s no need to tidy up.”
“I’m not cleaning.” She grabbed a shoe. “I need to get to bed.”
“Exactly what I had in mind.” He patted the mattress. “Right here.”
“I mean my bed. For sleep.”
He stood, her officious tone a splash of cold water. Naked save her threadbare stockings, Genevieve moved faster, balling up an underskirt. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she tried to cover herself. From him.
She stuffed another underskirt into her arms and searched the floor. “My other shoe…I can’t find it.”
He nabbed it from under the curtain. “You aren’t staying.”
“No.” She reached for the shoe, but he held it close. “Aren’t you going to give it to me?”
“Why not stay here? The bed is warm.” He grinned, waggling his eyebrows. “And I’m warmer.”
She didn’t look him in the eye, instead straightening the bundle in her arms. A distinct chill crept between them. Her mouth flattened, the same line he’d witnessed when they’d talked at Devil’s Causeway. Was she hiding more secrets?
His eyes narrowed. “What about Herr Wolf? Did you sleep with him?”
Genevieve cocked her head as though he were some strange creature. She stepped closer and pulled the shoe from his hand.
“I never sleep with a man.” As they stood toe to toe, she pinned him with her dark eyes and was unashamed to say, “I did have sex with Reinhard…but sleeping? Much more personal.”
A searing stone hit his stomach. Sleeping with someone required trust. She didn’t have it. Not for him. What an ugly truth, but it was her life. Who was he to think he could wipe away the past in one night? This was her choice. His past had been less savory. He had no room to scold or judge. Such was the way of men and women.
But he didn’t have to like it.
“I am grateful for what you’ve done,” she said, clutching her clothes. “You saved me with this…this arrangement, but we both know it won’t last. My sleeping with you would only complicate matters.”
His hands balled tightly at his sides. Her words doled out doses of truth. Genevieve didn’t share an inkling of what he felt for her. Not when she was grateful.
“You’d grant the favor of your body but not be with me. Is that what you’re saying?”
Her small nose was inches from his chin. One arm flexed as though she would touch him but didn’t.
“Sex is one thing. Sleeping in the same bed with a man is another.” Her alto was as gentle as if he was the one in need. “It could produce…feelings.”
Balled-up skirts brushed against him, grazing intimate flesh. His breeches were loose, his fall wide open. He stood fully clothed like a sex-hungry fool with his man parts hanging free. The taste of her sex still covered his mouth.
“Your…tender care tonight… Thank you,” she said.
A knot inside him went cold. “I’m glad to be of service.”
A tiny furrow notched between her brows. He could press his case. Touch her just so. Seduce her into staying. Head high, he kept his hands at his sides.
“I’ll take my leave, milord. Tomorrow will be a busy day… The horses.”
He winced and buttoned up his placket. She’d addressed him as milord again.
Genevieve turned, keeping her clothes against her chest, a woman hiding her nudity. The red cloak framed her heart-shaped bottom, all the better to torment him as she walked away.
It was laughable. Covering the front of her body, yet her backside stayed bare.
Except he wasn’t laughing.
Twenty-one
Wetness trickled down his cheek. Marcus slapped his jaw, day-old whiskers abrading his palm. He yanked the bedsheet higher, seeking sleep’s fog.
“Did you know the Athenians rose before sunrise to hear their tragedies?” A voice reached through the fog. Samuel.
“Is that because getting up with the sun is a tragedy?”
Samuel’s chuckle rumbled overhead. “No. Because a new day is the answer after a dark night of the soul.” He paused. “Or something like that.”
“Reading with Adam again,” he mumbled against the sheet. Marcus burrowed deeper, but another drop hit his head. And another. Water. “Please tell me you’re not holding a bucket of water over my head.”
“It’s not a bucket.”
Marcus knocked back the sheet. His friend stood over him, a dark specter in a black frock coat, the washstand’s pewter pitcher in hand.
“You can stop now. I’m getting up.”
“Good. I’d douse you, but in deference to your housekeeper, I’ll not drench the bed. She’d be the one to clean it up.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” Marcus mumbled, pushing back the counterpane to plant both feet on the floor.
Samuel walked to the washstand. “I see you slept in your clothes.”
“It was late when Genevieve and I returned.”
His friend set the pitcher down with care. “Genevieve, is it?”
“We are married.”
Marcus scrubbed his face and finger combed his hair. After his bride’s shocking exit, he’d crawled under the covers, seeking sleep. Explaining himself didn’t top his list of things to do this morning, but Samuel picked up a hair ribbon off the floor.
“I thought the plan was to deposit her with family in Coldstream, safely away from here.”
“You mean safely away from me,” Marcus said, shucking yesterday’s shirt and waistcoat. He’d don a new shirt but wear the same rumpled breeches and stockings he’d slept in.
Aromas of sex lingered. There was no denying it. Despite last night’s enticing bed sport, sleep hadn’t been good. Clothes bound a body, leaving residue of an old day.
Or was his discomfort the result of an inglorious end to glorious sex?
He stuck a foot in his boot. “She would’ve stayed in Coldstream,” he explained. “Except that her grandmother died months ago. We visited the grave.” Shivering at being shirtless, he tugged the boot over his knee. “I couldn’t leave her. Not after learning bad news.”
“And you, being the perfect gentlemen, offered consolation.”
Marcus jammed on his other boot, wanting to laugh at the absurdity. It shouldn’t sting that his friend thought the worst of him. Everyone counted him a wastrel.
If Samuel only knew how the night had played out…how Miss Genevieve Turner-cum-Lady Bowles had used him for her consolation. She’d taken her pleasure and stood naked as the day she was born, reducing last night to a bedtime romp before leaving him. His new wife had cut him at the knees. He sprang off the bed, itching to defend himself, but his lips clamped shut.
Genevieve deserved better.
“My conduct is none of your concern.” He snatched a clean shirt from his chest of drawers and slipped it over his head. So Samuel painted him a scoundrel. Better he was besmirched than her.
His friend stalked to the doorway, shaking his head. “You might say differently in an hour.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Chin up, Marcus tied his cravat. Stomach growling and weary from poor sleep, his body demanded that he answer nature’s call, among other needs. He didn’t have patience for cryptic quips.
“It means you’d better be ready to defend your actions…more precisely the woman in question. A man has traveled far to get her.”
Marcus slipped on his coat. “Herr Wolf.” The fierce Prussian had been furthest from his thoughts.
“The man’s chased her all this way, and you’re keeping what he wants. Be ready.”
“You make this sound medieval,” Marcus said, standing over the chamber pot to answer nature’s call.
“It is.” Samuel eyed the rumpled bed. “Especially if he discovers you’ve sampled what belongs to him.”
“She’s not chattel.” Marcus caught sight of himself in the mirror. He’d not untied his queue, and strands of hair had come loose from sleep and Genevieve’s frantic fingers.
“He doesn’t see it that way.”
Marcus buttoned up his placket and poured water into the basin. He splashed his face, but there’d be no time to shave. “Proper steps have been taken. We’re legally wed.”
“Legalities won’t stop a man like that. You should’ve wed her and hid her.”
A new weight pressed against Marcus’s shoulders. He forgot about breakfast and the tangle of last night’s encounter. He needed to fend off the Wolf. Under Samuel’s watchful eye, he retrieved a pair of Spanish wheel lock pistols and a powder horn from the walnut pistol box on his bedside table. One pistol went to his boot; the other he tucked in his back waistband, hidden under his coat.
“We go about the day as usual, but I’ll stay close.”
No sooner had the words left his lips than the floors creaked and the amber crown of Genevieve’s head came into view behind Samuel’s shoulder. Skirts clutched in one hand, she walked into Marcus’s chamber, carrying a steaming mug.
His breath stopped a split second. Visions of her bare skin and full breasts swam before him. Of course she was dressed, but he couldn’t shake the image of the woman he’d touched last night.
Steam curled from the mug. Genevieve’s supple lips curved with a secret smile. “Your coffee, milord. I thought you might need it.”
He accepted the mug and took a sip. Scalding and a little sweet, just like the woman who’d handed him the hot brew.
“This is a first,” he said.
Her brows arched. “A first of what?”
“Bringing me a morning offering…upstairs.” And he took another sip, resenting the burgeoning stiffness in his breeches. She had no right to be so…collected. So refreshed. He was miserable from a bad night’s sleep, but his wife was clear-eyed and rosy-cheeked.
Genevieve slipped both hands into her apron pockets. “I never said I wouldn’t bring food or drink.”
“You never have.”
She grinned. “You never asked.”
“Obviously my negotiation skills are lacking.”
“And it’s not an offering.”
“No?” He took another sip, aware his housekeeper-cum-wife’s smile wilted.
“No.” Her gaze darted between him and Samuel. “There is something I need to tell you.”
“Another piece of information withheld?” Samuel interjected.
“I know.” She sighed. “Forthrightness with men doesn’t come easy.”
Marcus snorted at that and set down his cup. Her cheeks colored a darker red. Samuel frowned, his gaze beetling back and forth between them. This quick exchange with Genevieve had to sound odd. Because it was personal. History formed sharp and intimate between them.
How could he be vexed with the woman he wanted to hold?
“You don’t have to put yourselves in harm’s way on my account,” she said boldly. “It was wrong of me to pass it on to both of you.”
“Having second thoughts about being Lady Bowles?”
“It’s not that. It’s Reinhard. He’s a soldier.”
“As were the two of us,” Marcus stated firmly.
She shook her head, fretting with her elbow cuff. “No. He is more than a regular soldier.” Her fingers skimmed the pale skin on the underside of her forearm. “He has a tattoo here. A black dagger made to look like a cross. He belongs to a special order that serves the Prussian king.”
“How do you know this?” Samuel asked.
“Reinhard and his man Avo spoke freely about a Brotherhood of Silesia, but I didn’t know what it meant. One night Reinhard’s tongue was loose.” She drew a circle on the underside of her forearm. “He went on about his tattoo and serving a man called the Baron of Bromberg.”
Marcus tensed. Those talented fingers of hers rested at the crook of her elbow. She’d shared information gained in a state of undress with Herr Wolf. He didn’t like it. Genevieve gave more details to Samuel, yet the cadence of her breath, the proud tilt of her head told him she guessed what was going through his mind.
“Then we’re forewarned,” Samuel said. “If rule of law doesn’t make him leave, we’ve pistols.”
“Please,” she pleaded. “I’ll leave. I don’t want you to get hurt. Not on my account.”
It was only natural for Marcus to pull her into his arms and soothe her. Slowly he stroked her back and kissed the top of her head, murmuring reassurances.
He eyed Samuel. “Give us a moment.”
Samuel frowned at Marcus before turning heel and speeding downstairs. Once the cottage door was shut, Genevieve’s body sank into Marcus’s. His mouth opened, but no words came because her head nestled on his shoulder as if made for the spot.
His cheek rested on silken hair. He couldn’t be cross with her. “You wound my manly pride, Lady Bowles.”
“How have I done that, milord?”
“You doubt my soldier’s skills. Trust me. I wasn’t that much of a wastrel.”
“I’ve no doubt you were a fine soldier, but you don’t understand… Reinhard…” Genevieve pulled back, staring over his shoulder. “He’s…different. Two men armed with knives attacked him once. He moved so quickly. Broke one man’s arm. The other man’s nose. They dropped their knives and ran.” Her brown eyes searched him. “Do you understand? It was over in a matter of seconds.”
“Thank you for the warning.” He bristled at her implied comparison, especially since he came up lacking in her eyes.
She fingered a button on his coat. “What you’ve done for me is more than anyone has ever done before. I know our marriage is a sham, but it’s…”
“It’s what?” he prodded.
“It’s too much. The Wolf has won.” Swallowing hard, she put some space between them. “I’ve already packed my things. I’ll go with Reinhard when he comes.”
Twenty-two
No sooner had she bared herself to Lord Bowles, giving him the chance to escape their arrangement, when the cottage door opened.
“Riders coming. Two of them,” Mr. Beckworth bellowed from belowstairs.
“I’m on my way,” Marcus yelled and grabbed her shoulders.
She jolted at his hot, hazel-eyed scrutiny. Stern and unshaven, the master of Pallinsburn was positively hawkish.
“Do you want to go with him?”
“No, but—”
“Then it’s settled. You’re staying with me.”
Lord Bowles bolted from the room and she followed, colliding into him when he stopped short. Her leg bumped the pistol butt sticking out from his boot.
He steadied her from falling. “Keep to the cottage.”
His tone brooked no argument, but of course she would anyway.
“Don’t you think it’d be helpful if I were with you?”
“No,” he barked, descending the stairs. “Unpack your things. You’re not going anywhere.”
Skirts clutched hi
gh, she scurried after him. “But Reinhard might listen to reason—”
“You mean Herr Wolf? Do me the courtesy of addressing him less intimately.” He whipped on his redingote. “Remember. I am your husband.”
For a little while…
Settling his hat on his head, Lord Bowles filled the doorway. His broad shoulders would carry the burdens of another woman someday. Not hers.
She shivered at the fierceness in his eyes. “You’re right.”
“Marcus,” Mr. Beckworth called from the yard. “Now.”
With a curt nod, Lord Bowles shut the door. His sternness could be born of danger. Or was it something else? Was Lord Bowles jealous of Reinhard?
Genevieve hugged herself, trying to quell a dull ache. Having Marcus champion her was a luxury, one she wasn’t used to having. Nor had he liked it when she’d tried to warn him about Reinhard. She’d read the hardness in his eyes: he thought she believed he couldn’t protect her from the Wolf.
In the dim entry, part of her feared it to be true.
Outside conversations muffled with the ebb and flow of masculine voices booming louder. She cracked the door. Herr Wolf sat tall on a dark horse, while Herr Thade sat in a cart meant to take her and her few possessions away. In the yard, Lord Bowles’s and Mr. Beckworth’s heads bent in a conspirators’ conversation. Her old master and Herr Thade exchanged quick, speaking looks before both men dismounted. Herr Wolf’s coat flapped open, and a silver-trimmed pistol butt shined against his black waistcoat.
When she pressed her ear to the opening, the murmured voices drove her to distraction. They were too far away to hear. She eyed her red cloak. It’d be conspicuous to walk out the front door. Wrapping herself in the wool, she raced to her room. Her window hadn’t been opened in years, but wrenching with all her might, she jammed the side sash open. Crows pecked at the dead garden. She climbed through the opening and tumbled onto the straw mulch below.
On tiptoe, she skimmed the cottage wall. Deep male voices rumbled. Footsteps crunched the graveled path as if heading to the garden. Herr Wolf and Lord Bowles walked toward her.
