“Fair enough, then… We will not be able to travel into Birmingham tomorrow. The roads will not permit the passage of the gig, I believe. There is a sleigh in the stables, but I have my doubts as to its structural integrity. But if you’re willing to risk it, we can go into Lofton in the morning and obtain a common license from the vicar and be married in the church there, assuming he’d consent to it.”
She sighed heavily. “He might, but you’d have to pay dearly for it… he likes me not at all, and believes every ugly rumor that has ever been uttered against me.”
Malcolm smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “Then he should be relieved to see you wed, and we’ll pay whatever is necessary. It needs to be done and be done quickly. You cannot remain under this roof with the benefit of marriage.”
“About our marriage, my lord… What sort of marriage is it to be exactly?”
He’d wondered when she would ask. “It will not be a marriage of convenience, Katherine. It will be a real marriage in every way. Now it is my turn to ask a question.”
“And what question is that, my lord?” she asked, clearly rattled by his proclamation.
It was a question that had plagued him since he’d first learned of the rumors surrounding her. “Your cousin said that Mr. Cavendish was the man responsible for your ruin… Precisely… well, just how ruined are you Katherine?”
“I don’t understand,” she replied.
He decided to make it as clear as possible. “After we are wed and I come to your bed, will I find the wanton woman that Lofton proclaims you to be, a terrified innocent, or a traumatized victim?”
Her furious blush was an answer in and of itself. She turned her face from him, gazing into the fire rather than make eye contact. “I am none of those things—not innocent, not terrified, and not wanton.”
“Cavendish bedded you?”
“He forced himself upon me, and when we were discovered, he laid the blame for it at my door… telling everyone that I had seduced him instead. Today, he offered that position as a companion to his cousin because it would once again put me within his reach.”
“But you’re not afraid of me?” A note of challenge had crept into his voice. He didn’t want her fear, but he didn’t want her to lay claim to a bravery she did not actually possess and damage their relationship before it could even begin. He didn’t believe in love, but he did believe that a married couple could achieve contentment with one another if they could reach accord. The physical aspect of marriage was the best way to do that to his mind.
“I will be your wife,” she replied softly. “Whether I fear you or not, it is simply a part of it, is it not? A wife must submit to her husband’s will. That is what all women are taught.”
He laughed at that, but it wasn’t from amusement. “I would hope for a degree of enthusiasm and not just submission in a marriage bed… And to that end, I have a proposition for you, my betrothed.”
“What is your proposition?”
Malcolm smiled and crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against the mantle. “A kiss… we are to be married. Therefore, it would hardly be scandalous between a betrothed couple.”
“Then have your kiss, my lord, and be done with it!”
“I’ll not steal it from you, Katherine… I want a kiss freely given.”
Kit’s heart was pounding in her chest as she met his challenging gaze. He smiled at her like she imagined a pirate would, or perhaps a highwayman. “One kiss?”
“It’s a start… if a kiss is well given, more than one will be desired by us both.”
Her experience with kissing and the phrase well given had little enough to do with one another. Recalling Ned’s pawing at her and the foul stench of his breath as he shoved his overly wet tongue into her mouth, she couldn’t imagine that anyone would ever find kissing to be a pleasant activity.
Kit rose to her feet, fighting back a shiver. It wasn’t the cold or the dampness of her clothing that prompted it. It was him and what he’d goaded her into. She recognized his challenge for what it was, but she had no choice really. It was a fair thing to ask for under their rather strange circumstances and there was no good reason to refuse him unless any of the things he’d asked her before, if she were still innocent or completely terrified, were actually true. The fear was there, pressing in on her, but it was fear of the unknown, fear of tying herself irrevocably to a man she knew nothing of. Perhaps the kiss would tell her something of him, as well.
Only a few steps and she was standing just an arm’s length from him. It wasn’t the first time she’d stood so close, that she’d felt the heat of him and the weight of his presence. But there was intent with their proximity at the moment and it left her feeling unsteady. “I am uncertain of how to begin,” she admitted.
“Come closer,” he said.
“How close?”
“It’s a kiss, Katherine. Close enough for our lips to meet without either one of us having to break our necks,” he answered, a hint of a smile turning the corners of his mouth slightly upward.
He was ridiculously handsome and at one time in her life, that alone would have tempted her to behave in a manner both fast and flirtatious with him. But she was no longer that girl, that innocent who had no notion of just where stolen kisses could lead. Still, they were betrothed, she was in his home, and a kiss was a small price to pay.
Another step and she was close enough to see the gold flecks in his dark eyes, to see that there were strands of gold and auburn within his dark hair, glinting in the light of the fire. He remained still, leaning nonchalantly against the mantle, his arms crossed over his chest and that half smirk-half smile on his lips.
Kit had to rise to her tiptoes to reach him, but she did so with a bravado that belied her nerves. She pressed her lips to his. It should have been chaste, no more than a brushing of her mouth against his. But she felt the slight rasp of his whiskers against her skin, she tasted the spirits he’d consumed, and she could smell the subtle hint of sandalwood from his shaving lotion.
She drew back from him, and he cocked an eyebrow at her. “That’s hardly a kiss,” he protested. “I’m not a child to be consoled with such.”
“You asked for a kiss, my lord, and I have given you one!”
“Then perhaps you have not been well schooled in the art of kissing… If you’d permit me, I would correct it.”
It was another challenge. It also left her feeling as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice and being goaded to jump. She had no idea what awaited her at the bottom of the abyss, but it would surely leave her changed forever.
“Are you afraid of me, Katherine?”
No. She wasn’t, and even if she were, she would not admit it. “Of course not!”
“Then let me show you what a kiss can be,” he urged.
Kit took a deep breath, but still didn’t trust herself to speak. Instead she gave a curt nod. A startled gasp escaped her as his hands clasped her upper arms and tugged her closer to him, until she was pressed fully against him. She could feel the hardness of his chest pressing against the softness of her own. She’d never known that a man could be so firm and solid. The strength of his grip told the truth of it. He could hurt her if he chose, and far more easily than she liked to admit. Yet he held her gently, his thumbs tracing delicate circles on the tender skin just inside her elbow. Those lazy movements made her breathless and she felt foolish for it. It would be stupidity to let him sway her so easily.
“Relax,” he urged in a gentle whisper.
“Easy enough for you to say,” Kit replied, her own voice trembling and low. “You’ve a bit more experience in this arena than I do!”
He chuckled at that. “If I bite, I promise it won’t hurt.”
She frowned at that, uncertain of his meaning, but she had no time to ask. His lips settled over hers, firm and demanding. This was no brushing of mouths, it was insistent and intense. He mapped every curve of her mouth with his, altering the pressure from gentl
e to something almost harsh. And when his teeth grazed her bottom lip, nipping it just a shade past gently, she understood his earlier statement.
Heat coiled inside her, something she’d never experienced and certainly never anticipated. The warmth spread outward from her center, suffusing her limbs until she was languid with it. She found herself leaning into him, letting the hardened strength of his body support her own. It was tempting and delicious and it terrified her. Yet, she felt powerless to pull away—powerless to break the connection between them in that moment.
It was he who finally called a halt to what should have been a simple gesture of affection or attraction. He withdrew his lips from hers, yet continued to hold her close. His arms closed about her, drawing her even nearer. It was both comforting and unnerving as she laid her head against his chest, directly over his heart.
“That was not just a kiss,” she whispered softly.
His chest huffed with a silent chuckle before he uttered softly, “But it was, Katherine. A kiss, if done well, is nothing short of magic. I’d wager we did quite well, wouldn’t you?”
Kit said nothing. She didn’t need to. Her answer was obvious from the rapid beating of her heart and the trembling of her body against him. In that moment, with her lips still burning from his kiss and her heart still pounding in her chest, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d made a terrible mistake or if she’d stumbled into salvation for both herself and her brother. She offered up a silent prayer that she would not regret the arrangement they’d come to.
Mooney was still in his office though it was well after dark. He’d been imbibing heavily from the bottle of brandy he kept in his bottom drawer and going home foxed would see his wife inflicting just as much misery as his benefactress would.
The door to his office opened with a crash and she stood there, draped in jewels and furs. It was clear she was on her way out for the evening. The toast of the town, as it were. But the unholy light in her eyes made him shrink back.
“You said he would not be a problem,” she snapped viciously.
Mooney tried not to cower, but even he was aware of the plaintive and pathetic note in his voice as he replied, “He has proven very resourceful, my lady.”
She stepped deeper into the office, closing the door behind her. Her movements were slow, deliberate, and infinitely threatening. It was like watching an adder as it coiled in preparation of a strike. “Then clearly,” she said in a low and menacing voice, “he needs more obstacles in his path. I have sold my soul, bartered it to the darkest forces in the universe, Mooney, and I have done so to lay claim to what my own blood would deny me… I will not allow this upstart American to claim that estate and the fortune that accompanies it simply because he possesses a bit of flesh that I do not!”
Mooney didn’t point out the obvious, that it wasn’t her gender so much as the circumstances of her birth. The late Lord Hadley had been her father, but her mother had been wed to another man at the time.
“That spiteful bitch, Lady Elsingham, has had a hand in this! I just know it!” she continued. “She’ll pay for it too. And so will you… but now, I have to cut my evening short and go home to consult my books and see what I can do about moving this process along!”
“What process is that?” he asked, hating himself for it.
She smiled. “It isn’t enough to simply summon a demon, Mooney… you have to feed them to give them power. Best you don’t ask anything else because you will not like the answer.”
Mooney watched her sweep out but the relief he felt at her departure was short lived. He couldn’t fathom what she was about, but he was a part of it whether he wanted to be or not. He would burn in hell beside her, he realized, but he feared hell less than he feared her.
Hours later, tucked into a still dusty room with Vera sleeping on a daybed beside the door, Kit lay in her bed, staring sightlessly up at the brocade canopy as she contemplated everything that could possibly go wrong. He was too unpredictable, too raw and too—him. The man was like a force of nature. He’d come into her life and upended it entirely. Even if it was possibly for the better, it still left her feeling unsteady and frightened.
Rolling onto her side, Kit’s eyes followed the pattern of the stones in the wall next to the hearth. It was drafty and cold, but with all the blankets that had been heaped upon her bed, it was still warmer than she’d ever been in the small chamber she’d shared with her brother in her cousin’s attic. Making a mental note to check the attics for any tapestries that hadn’t been decimated by mice, her eyes traced a crack in the stones, following the jagged seam.
She wasn’t certain what alerted her. There was no sound, nothing seemingly out of the ordinary. And yet the feeling of not being alone, of being watched, overwhelmed her. Reluctantly, Kit drew her gaze from the hearth and turned it toward the foot of the bed. The image was faint, but with the moonlight sifting through the lace covered windows, it was easy enough to see the pale and translucent figure of a woman at the foot of her bed. The features were indistinct, no matter how hard she tried to focus her gaze on that face, they remained unclear. She was left with only the impression of long, golden hair and a simple white gown or perhaps a night rail.
The scream was building inside her, fear taking hold of her. Against every instinct, she swallowed it down, forcing herself to speak to the apparition as if she were any other intruder. “Why are you here? Who are you?” she demanded.
On the daybed, Vera let out a moan and followed it abruptly with a loud snore. Kit spared a glance in her direction, but that was all it took. When her eyes darted back to the foot of the bed, the figure was gone. Vanished into the darkness as if it had been nothing more than mist, or perhaps her own overactive imagination.
“No. It was real,” she whispered to herself. “I saw it and I’m neither mad nor fanciful!”
Knowing that sleep would continue to prove elusive, Kit sat up in the bed and prepared herself to keep watch. The chill she felt had nothing to do with the temperature of the room itself and everything to do with the cold, overwhelming dread inside her. Haunted. Vera had said as much and so had her future husband. In all the times she’d come to Rosedale Hall with her brother to simply walk the overgrown park, she’d never been tempted to breech the sanctity of the house, call her as it might. Had she somehow sensed even then that the house held its own darkness?
In the deep shadows of her room, Kit spoke again. “What have I done? What in heaven’s name have I gotten myself into?”
Malcolm stood near the window, staring out over the snow shrouded park. He’d attempted to sleep, but tossing and turning in the bed had simply left him irritated and frustrated. It was her. His bride. It had been an innocent enough kiss, a mere taste of her lips. And it had set him on fire. He was burning with need for her. Knowing that only a single door separated them was torture.
The fanciful notion of love at first sight or anything so lushly romantic he immediately dismissed. It was lust and nothing more. But he knew himself well enough to admit that it was also possessiveness sparked by the idea that she was now his. Right or wrong, by agreeing to be his wife, she had surrendered herself to him. She’d argue the point, no doubt, but she was his and when they were properly wed, he would show her just what that meant. In the meantime, he would spend one more lonely night, frustrated and aching for her.
Turning away from the window, Malcolm felt the chill that had nothing to do with the draft seeping in around the glass. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt that preternatural cold. It crept upon him, inch by inch.
There’d been a woman once, one he’d thought of as simply a casual lover, but one who’d clearly thought of him as so much more. When he’d tried to extricate himself from their arrangement, she’d become possessive, clinging, even despondent. She’d threatened to kill herself if he left, trying to blackmail him into remaining at her side.
What he remembered so clearly from that experience was the panic, the caged feeling that had consumed
him in her cloying presence. Whomever or whatever had entered his room there in the cold, dark hours of the night, the being that now lurked behind him, its chilly presence snaking along his spine, left him with that same feeling. It sparked inside him the desire to run, to flee and free himself from facing things that were beyond his ken. But this was his home and he would not give it up. He would not be driven from it by his own fear or by whatever entity had taken up residence there. Someway, he would find out what it was and in the doing, he would find a way to get rid of it.
Chapter 11
They would not be getting married that day. Kit stared through the window at the snow shrouded landscape and knew without question that it would be far too dangerous to attempt the journey, even if it was just to the village. So she was to remain unmarried, under a bachelor’s roof with her seven year old brother, two servants, and a very active spirit to act as chaperone.
“What could possibly go wrong?” she muttered to herself. The answer was simple enough. Everything.
“I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all,” Vera uttered softly. “Did he plan it you think? To get you here, have his way with you, and then toss us all out with nothing but the clothes on our backs?”
It had crossed her mind, but Kit refused to feed Vera’s ever growing anxiety about their current situation. “No. I think if he’d wanted to have his way with me, he could have done that easily enough when I met with him here alone just two days past. I think he will honor his word, Vera. No man can control the weather, much as they might like to.”
Vera let out a heavy sigh, as if she’d been holding a breath and were too afraid to exhale. “You’re probably right, but I cannot help it, Miss. I don’t trust men. Never had much reason to!”
A Heart So Wicked (The Dark Regency Series Book 6) Page 8
