Trial by Desire

by Courtney Milan

  But no. Nothing had changed—least of all, his wife.

  She stared at him, her lips parted in shock, as if he had announced that he had a penchant for playing vingt-et-un with ravens. She drew her cloak about her. No doubt she wanted to shield herself from his gaze. And like that, it all came back—all the ragged danger of that old intensity—burning into the palms of his hands.

  Her cloak was dusty all over and, thank God, falling about her as it did, it hid the curves of her waist. After all these years of careful control, the check he performed was almost perfunctory. Yes. He still controlled his own emotions; they did not jerk him around, like a dog on a chain.

  But then, it had been a long while since he’d felt these particular emotions. Ten minutes in his wife’s presence, and already she’d begun to befuddle him again.

  “You really didn’t recognize me,” he said.

  She stared at him, suddenly mute and uneasy.

  No, of course not. All that easy conversation? That, she’d produced for a stranger. A stranger who she believed had intended to seduce her, no less. Ned scrubbed his hand through his hair.

  “Two years? There’s been a wager running for two years to seduce you?”

  “What did you suppose would happen? You left me three months after our wedding.” Kate turned away. She took two breaths. He could see the rigid line of her shoulder even under all that wool. And he waited, waited for an outpouring of some kind. A diatribe; an accusation. For anything.

  But when she turned back, only the clutch of her gloved hand on her cloak betrayed any unease.

  That smile—that damnably enchanting smile—peeked out again. “And here I supposed your departure was the masculine equivalent of sounding the bugle to presage the hunt for your fellow gentlemen. You could not have declared it hunting season on Lady Kathleen Carhart any more effectively if you’d taken out an advertisement in the gossip circulars.”

  “That’s certainly not what I intended.”

  No. His thinking had taken a different cast altogether. When he’d left for China, he’d been young and idiotic; old enough to insist that he was an adult, and not wise enough to realize how far he was from the truth. He’d spent his early years playing the dissolute and useless spare to his cousin’s rigid, rule-bound heir.

  He’d made himself sick on the uselessness of himself. When he’d married, he had hungered to prove that he wasn’t a child. That he could take on any task, no matter how difficult, and demonstrate that he had grown into a strong and dependable man.

  He’d done it, too.

  One woman—one who had already sworn to honor and obey him—shouldn’t have seemed so insurmountable a prospect.

  Ned shook his head and looked at Kate. “No,” he repeated. “When I left, I wasn’t trying to send any message. It didn’t have anything to do with you at all.”

  “Oh.” Her lips whitened and she looked ahead. “Well. Then. I suppose that’s good to know.”

  She turned around and began to walk away. Ned felt the pit of his stomach sink, as if he’d said something utterly stupid. He couldn’t think what it was.

  “Kate,” he called. She stopped. She did not look at him, but there was something—perhaps the line of her profile—that suggested a certain wariness.

  He swallowed. “That wager. Did anyone succeed?”

  She stiffened slightly, and then her shoulders lowered in defeat. Now she did turn around.

  “Oh, Mr. Carhart.” It was the first time she had spoken his name since he’d returned, and she imbued those few syllables with all the starch of sad formality. “As I recall, I vowed to forsake all others, keeping only unto you, for as long as we both should live.”

  He winced. “I wasn’t questioning your honor.”

  “No.” She put her hands on her waist and then looked up at him. “I merely wish to remind you that it was not I who forgot our wedding vows.”

  And with those words, she glanced up the packed dirt of the path to where his gray mare stood. She let out a deep sigh and turned away once more. For a second, Ned imagined grabbing her wrist again, imagined himself swiveling her around to face him. She wouldn’t look at him with sadness or that wary distance. In fact, distance was the last thing he wanted between them—

  She cast him one final glance and then crossed to his mare, which was cropping grass by the side of the road. “One solution to your logical dilemma?” she said. “Get another boat.”

  She took his horse’s reins and wrapped them around her wrist. And before he could say another word, she set off down the track.

  Champion’s reaction to Ned’s mare meant that he could not walk close to Kate, not without risking a repeat of that skittish rearing and bolting. He perforce trailed after her, feeling rather like a clumsy duckling to her elegant swan.

  The English countryside smelled like dust and autumn sunshine. His wife walked ten yards ahead of him. She strode as if she might outrun his existence entirely, if only she put one foot in front of the other quickly enough. Maybe it was madness, that he imagined he could catch the scent of her on the breeze—that half remembered smell of fine-milled soap and lilac. It was even more foolish to watch her retreating backside and wonder what else might have changed about her while he wasn’t looking.

  Her hair, or what he could see of it from under that floppy gray bonnet, was still such a pale blond as to appear almost platinum. Her eyes still snapped gray when angry. As for her waist… He hadn’t lied when he said he recognized her by the feel of her waist in his hands. He hadn’t touched her often, but it had been enough. She was delicate, with that fine, elegant figure and those pale gray eyes ringed by impossibly long lashes.

  When he’d married her, she had seemed like some bright creature. A butterfly, perhaps, its wings vibrant and shimmering in the sunlight. When she had smiled at him, Ned felt himself wanting to believe that it would be June forever, all warmth and blue skies. Instinctively, he’d shied away from that promise of eternal summer. After all, one didn’t talk to a butterfly about the coming snow, no matter how bright its wings appeared to be.

  Fewer than twenty-four hours back in England, and he’d rediscovered how much of a threat his wife still posed to his equanimity. A man in control of himself wouldn’t have wanted to press her against that damned gritty stone wall, in broad daylight. A man in control of himself enjoyed his wife within the careful, pleasant confines of marriage.

  Well. Ned had faced down a captain in Her Majesty’s Navy. He’d issued orders to an officer in the East India Company. He wasn’t the foolish boy who had left England, eager to prove himself. And he wasn’t about to let a little desire get the best of his discipline now.

  The road ran on, and a fine sheen of dust gathered on the wool of his coat. They turned off the track and onto a wide, tree-lined way. Ned knew the road well. They were approaching Berkswift, his childhood country home. He supposed it was her home now, too; odd, that their lives had intertwined so, even in his absence.

  As he walked down the lane, the lazy smell of cultivated earth recently turned in preparation for winter wheat, wafted to him. Even before they broke through the line of trees that shielded the estate from the road, Ned could conjure up the image of the manor in his mind—the golden-rose of the stone facade, the three long wings, the graveled half ring out front for carriages. At this time of the morning, the yard would stand empty, waiting to be filled by the day’s activities.

  But as they came through the final copse of young birches, they did not find quiet. Instead, the drive was busy: positively boiling with servants. The cause of their work was clear. Three heavy black carriages stood on that circular drive before the house. Ned could make out a coat-of-arms, picked out in blue and silver, on the one standing nearest him.

  In front of him, Kate stopped. Her entire body froze, her posture as rigid as a duelist poised at thirty paces. As he came abreast of her, she cut her eyes toward him.

  “Did you invite him?” She gestured toward the coat of arms. �
��Did you invite him here?” She had not raised her voice, but her pitch had risen a note or two.

  “I just arrived in England myself.”

  “That’s not an answer. Did you invite the Earl of Harcroft?”

  That would be Eustace Paxton, the Earl of Harcroft. Most of the ton was related in some twisted fashion. Harcroft was Ned’s third cousin, twice-removed, on his father’s side. They’d been friends, of a sort, for years. He’d married even younger than Ned had. And just before Ned had left London, Lord and Lady Harcroft had done Ned a favor.

  Kate was still watching him, her lips compressed in sudden wariness.

  “No,” he said slowly. “The only one I’ve spoken to so far was my solicitor.” And even if word of his return had traveled, as no doubt it would, Ned didn’t see how Harcroft could have mustered himself out of bed in time to actually beat Ned to Berkswift, and traveling by heavy carriage no less.

  Beside him, Kate frowned, as if he’d committed some egregious breach of manners. Maybe he had. Eight months aboard ship and a man forgot a great many things.

  “I think that’s Jenny and Gareth’s carriage in front. Maybe they’ve come with Harcroft?” Gareth was his cousin, Gareth Carhart, the Marquess of Blakely; Jenny, his marchioness.

  Kate smoothed her skirts with her hands, brushing them away from Ned subtly, as if whatever disease of gaucherie he carried might be catching.

  “Lord and Lady Blakely,” she said primly, “are welcome here.” She stared forward fixedly and let out her breath.

  She said nothing of Louisa or her husband. Kate and Louisa had seemed on their way toward friendship when Ned had left. Clearly, a great deal had transpired in Ned’s absence.

  When Kate inhaled again, she straightened. It was as if she’d taken in a lungful of sunshine. Her face lifted, her eyes relaxed, her shoulders lost their rigid cast. If he hadn’t seen her unease just seconds before, he might have believed her expression genuine. “Unexpected houseguests,” she said. “What a pleasure this will be.”

  And, handing the horse she had been leading to a groom, she walked in.

  CHAPTER THREE

  KATE HAD DRESSED FOR BATTLE, donning her finest pink muslin morning dress. With lace at her wrists and mother-of-pearl buttons at her throat, instead of that itchy servant’s cloak, she felt capable of matching wits with anyone.

  And yet she could not make out the conversation coming from the morning room a few yards distant, where the guests had been ensconced. She only heard the low murmur of voices, echoing down the wood of the hall. Her company was waiting, and the sound they made reminded her of thunder lurking on the horizon.

  It was a good thing she was wearing her mother’s pearls. With those clasping her neck, she felt as if she could conquer anything. Harcroft would mock her, no doubt, if he knew her thoughts. He’d dismiss her attire as frills and furbelows—a woman’s only armor. Idiocy on his part.

  There were a great many problems that could be solved with a visit to the mantua-maker. And fine gowns or no, this meeting promised to be a war, however politely and subtly it was joined.

  Kate took a deep breath and readied herself to enter the room.

  “Kate.”

  The voice behind her—that deep, now too-recognizable voice—pierced through her gathering sureness. She whirled around. She felt a strand of hair fall out of her carefully pinned coiffure as she did so, to dangle in untidy fashion against her neck.

  “Ned.” Not even his name; the nickname his intimates gave him escaped her in a breathless rush. She’d meant to use a careful, distancing surname. Kate cursed that betraying slip. He could probably hear her heart hitting her ribs in staccato emphasis, revealing every last emotion she wanted hidden. Likely he was taking note of the blanch of her cheeks, the pinch of her lips.

  “I thought you’d gone ahead.” She’d intended the words to come out an accusation. But to her ear they sounded unfortunately breathy. “I was sure you would hurry to greet the Marquess and the Marchioness of Blakely, if not Harcroft himself.”

  “I did hurry.” If he had, though, his breath came evenly. Kate felt as if she were gasping for air.

  He didn’t seem the least out of sorts to find her here. In fact, he smiled at her, almost as if he knew a joke that she did not. “But I had to shave.”

  “I see that.”

  It was half the reason her heart had accelerated to this unsustainable pace. With his beard shorn, Kate could see every last feature—chin, lips and, worst of all, that assured smile. She could find only the roughest sketch of the man she had married. The man Kate had married had been scrawny, a youngster barely out of adolescence. That youthfulness had made him seem sweet.

  The intervening time had washed the youth from her husband’s features. His jaw was no longer set in awkward apology; now it was square, and he looked at her in clear command. His nose no longer seemed too sharp, too piercing. It fit the look of canny awareness he’d developed.

  Once, he’d seemed clumsy, constantly tripping over feet that were too large for the rest of his body. But over the past years, he’d grown into those feet. What had once seemed a surfeit of bumbling motion had transmuted into a restless economy, a sheer vitality highlighted by the sun-darkened gold of his skin.

  Her husband had stopped being safe.

  “Shall we go in together?” he asked, holding out his elbow.

  Even that slight motion tweaked her perverse memory. Where once he’d apologetically claimed the space he needed, constantly pulling his elbows into his side, now he seemed to fill an area far beyond his skin. It seemed an act of bravery to reach out and set her fingers in the crook of his elbow. He radiated an unconscious aura now—as if he were more dangerous, more intense. Give this man a wide berth, her senses shouted.

  Instead, she closed her hand about his finely woven wool coat. She could feel the strength of the arm underneath.

  “I don’t think we’ll fool any of them, coming in together.” She forced herself to look up, to meet the intensity of his gaze. “If anyone knows the truth about our marriage, it’s the people in the room in front of us.”

  His head tilted to one side. “You tell me, Kate. What is the truth of our marriage?”

  He did not smile at her, nor did he waggle his eyebrows. His question was seriously meant. As if somehow, he did not know. His ignorance, Kate supposed, must have been bliss for him. For her, however, it sparked a deep ache beneath her breastbone.

  “Our marriage lasted a few months. Once you left, what remained faded faster than the ink on the license. And what’s left…well, it could blow away in one tiny puff of wind.”

  “Well, then.” He spoke with an air of certainty. “I’ll try not to exhale.”

  “Don’t bother. I stopped holding my breath years before.”

  Even when he’d been a young, deferential boy, he hadn’t truly been safe. He’d hurt her when he left. Now she felt a stupid surge of hope at his words. A damnable, irrepressible whisper of a thought, suggesting that something might yet come of her marriage.

  The real danger wasn’t the strong line of his jaw or the powerful curve of his biceps under her fingers. No; as always, the real dangers were her own hopes and desires. It was that whisper of longing, a list that started with, step one: find a night rail….

  Those old girlish wants would return unbidden if she gave them the least encouragement. It wouldn’t matter how lightly he breathed.

  And nowadays, she had far more important secrets to occupy her worries than a little scrap of silk.

  “Well,” he said, “let’s give it a go anyway. Our guests expect us.” Without waiting for an answer, he set his hand over her fingers, clasping them to the crook of his arm. The gesture was strong and confident. He didn’t know what awaited them. Kate ignored the queasiness in her stomach and walked with him into the room.

  After the dimness of the hall, blinding white morning light filled her vision. All sound ceased, swallowed up by an immense shocked silence. Then fabric
rustled; a flurry of lavender blurred across Kate’s vision, and before she could blink and get her bearings, a silk-clad form cannoned into Ned beside her, breaking Kate’s contact with her husband.

  “Ned,” the woman said, “you ridiculous man. Not a word of warning, not one hint that you’d arrived. When were you planning to tell us?”

  “I just landed,” Ned said. “Late last night. You’ll find the missive on your return.”

  The woman was Jennifer Carhart, the Marchioness of Blakely. She was Ned’s cousin’s wife, and as he’d explained to Kate after their marriage, also one of Ned’s dearest friends. “I missed you,” Lady Blakely was saying.

  Lady Blakely was pretty and dark-haired and clever, and Kate felt a prickle of unworthy resentment arise inside her. Not jealousy, at least not of that sort. But she envied the easy friendship Lady Blakely had with her husband.

  When the marchioness pulled away, her husband, the marquess, took her place. “Ned.”

  “Gareth.” Ned clasped the offered hand. “Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. I know my good wishes are much delayed, but I only just had the news from the solicitor this morning.”

  “My thanks.” The marquess glanced at Kate, briefly, and then looked away without meeting her eyes. “Lady Kathleen.”

  Naturally, Ned did not notice that little dismissal. Instead, he clapped his cousin on the shoulders. “I do wish you’d hurry up and spit out an heir, though. It’s uncomfortable dangling on your hook.”

  “No.” Lord Blakely spoke directly, almost curtly. But his gaze cut to his wife, who poked him. “No,” he amended with a sigh. “But thank you for the sentiment. I’d much rather have children than an heir. I’ll keep my girl—you and yours can have the damned marquessate when I’m gone.” His gaze flicked to Kate again, as if it were somehow her fault she hadn’t burst forth with twin sons, with her husband half the world away.

  Kate should have been playing the hostess here, setting everyone at ease. Instead, she felt as if she were an interloper in her own home, as if she were the one returning after a bewildering absence of three years. And perhaps her feelings had something to do with the precariousness of Louisa’s situation. But this gap, this feeling of not belonging, had arisen long before she had even known the danger Louisa was in.