Arabella rested her head against the hollow in his shoulder, gazing up at him.
A dark brow climbed high. “Aunt Grace again?” he guessed.
Arabella nodded. “Yes,” she confided a trifle breathlessly. “Justin, my aunt loves nothing more than planning parties and such. So I must warn you, so you aren’t surprised at anything she might chance to say…”
“What, another outspoken woman? I begin to see you’ve gained your tendencies from your mother’s side.”
His warm teasing forestalled her anxiety. “Yes, well, I fear I must tell you that with our hasty wedding, well, she’s anxious to begin planning the christening of our — our firstborn.”
“Is she, now?” His smile was almost lazy.
Arabella held her breath. He hardly looked displeased at the prospect. She regarded him cautiously. “How do you feel about children, Justin?”
He shrugged. “I must be honest,” he said dryly. “Prior to the last few weeks, I’ve given little thought to the idea of marriage, let alone children.”
Arabella took a breath. “If we ever have children,” she said solemnly, “I hope they resemble you.”
Justin froze. Did she know what she was saying? A child who looked like him…He blanched inside. For an instant, he couldn’t breathe. He thought he might choke.
“I saw the portrait of your mother at Thurston Hall.” Arabella sighed dreamily. “You are the very picture of her, you know. I confess, I like the idea of a daughter with your striking coloring. Or a son with your exquisite features.” Still smiling, she touched his cheek.
Justin couldn’t help it. He recoiled.
“Good God. Do not say that. Do not even think it.”
His sudden harshness stilled her smile.
She sat up, drawing the sheet over her breasts. “Is the idea of children so abhorrent to you?” she asked carefully. “Or is it that you fear they will look like me?”
He made a sound in his throat. “For pity’s sake, Arabella, I refuse to dignify such a ridiculous statement. If I were afraid of how our children would turn out, I wouldn’t have married you, now, would I?”
Timidly she asked, “So you wouldn’t mind a daughter with flaming red curls?”
“No,” he stated flatly.
It was hardly the reassurance she craved. Seeking some measure of encouragement, she stretched out a hand toward his face.
He stopped her cold, winding his fingers around her wrist and thrusting her hand back in her lap.
He might as well have slapped her in the face. A treacherous little pain knotted her heart, yet somehow she found the courage to lift her chin. “You did that on our wedding night. You did it again now. Twice,” she pointed out quietly. “Justin, why won’t you let me touch your face?”
He flung the sheets aside and rose, patently ignoring her as if she hadn’t spoken.
Arabella had gone very still inside. Numbly she stared at the rigid lines of his back as he reached for his dressing gown. “Justin?” she whispered.
Almost savagely he jerked the ties of his robe closed. “This whole discussion of children is premature.” He didn’t look at her as he spoke. In fact, he was already striding toward the door.
Arabella slid from the bed. She grabbed her own dressing gown from the hook on the wall. She was still trying to shove her arms in the sleeves when the door slammed shut.
She was undeterred — and not three steps behind him when he entered his study.
He went straight to the table near the window and reached for a crystal decanter. Her lips compressed when he poured a generous splash, for she knew he was well aware of her presence. But he chose not to face her. Instead he raised the glass to his lips, staring out the window, his back to her.
Behind him, Arabella crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re right,” she said evenly. “The subject of children can wait, though we certainly haven’t done anything to prevent the prospect, have we? But I want an answer to my question, Justin. Why won’t you let me touch your face?”
At first she’d been puzzled, then hurt. Now she was determined.
He drained the glass and reached for another.
“Please look at me when I talk to you.”
He turned, his green eyes distant. “Must we discuss this now?”
Her tone was as arch as his. “And when would be a good time? Never?”
His eyes flickered. “If it pleases you, Arabella, I should like to enjoy my brandy in private.”
“Well, it doesn’t please me,” she shot back hotly. “What did I do? What did I say that was so wrong? Answer me, damn you!”
His lips pulled into something that scarcely resembled a smile. “Not very pretty language for a vicar’s daughter, my love.”
Arabella stared. He was thin-lipped and stony. It was as if she could see him withdrawing, pulling away inside himself…away from her. But why? Why?
A pulse was ticking inside her. Ticking like a clock in an empty room, until she wanted to scream. She stood motionless, aware in some strange, unfathomable way she didn’t fully comprehend that something was deeply wrong. Beneath his handsome facade was something hidden, something he refused to share.
Her anger drained away as suddenly as it erupted. But her composure was shaken badly. She felt bewildered, hurt, anxious, and it took every ounce of courage she possessed to remain where she was.
“Why do you look like that? Justin, what happened to you?”
He gave a curt laugh. “My God, three weeks wed and you’d think she’d known me forever.”
Arabella caught her breath. God, but he could be cruel!
“It was you who said we were alike.” She shook her head. Her gaze turned pleading. “Why are you doing this? Why are you so cold?”
“What, Arabella!” He raised his hands high at his sides. “You don’t like what you see? What I am? Perhaps you should have married Walter.”
His voice pricked her deeply. “I know what you’re doing, Justin. You’re trying to push me away, aren’t you?”
“For pity’s sake! Can’t a man have a moment to himself?”
More than anything, Arabella longed to go to him. To wrap her arms around him and cling. But somehow she knew he would shut her out, shut her away. How could a night that began so perfectly have turned so ugly?
The breath she drew was deep and racking. “Something’s wrong, Justin. I know it. I can feel it. Something is very —”
“There is nothing wrong!”
The tension spun out endlessly. Seized by a bone-deep despair, she hugged her arms around herself, as if to ward off a chill. Indeed, she acknowledged vaguely, she felt as if she’d been plunged into a vat of ice.
“Is this how it will always be?” Her voice was very low, thick with the threat of tears that lay just beneath the surface. “Will we share nothing but passion? Nothing but a bed? Can you tell me nothing —”
“Arabella,” he intoned politely, “I invite you to leave.” With that he turned, staring out the window, his chiseled profile etched in silver. His posture inflexible, his face a mask of stone.
The silence was unending. It was as if she hadn’t spoken, as if she weren’t even there…as if he’d forgotten her.
As if she didn’t even exist.
“Justin —”
With a curse, he whirled. “Must you keep hounding me?” he demanded tautly. “Have I wed a harridan? Go back to bed and just leave me the hell alone!”
His regard was fierce. His tone was fierce. Both scalded her. A sharp, tearing pain speared through her heart.
Arabella waited no longer. With a stricken little cry she bolted.
Twenty
The instant she was gone, Justin spun around. A wrenching pain ripped through him. He wanted to howl and rage like the monster he was.
His eyes squeezed shut. But even then her image danced against his eyelids. Arabella, staring up at him, chalk-white and pale, her wounded hurt shooting like an arrow straight into his heart.
“Sweet Christ,” he whispered. “What have I done?”
In the aftermath hung an eerie silence.
You bastard, jabbed a scathing voice in his skull. You filthy bastard.
Self-disgust churned in his belly. Never had he hated himself as he did in that moment. He’d always known he was a demon inside. But he’d never known how completely vile he was until now.
Feeling as old as the heavens, he made his way into a chair. Numbly he realized his glass was still in hand. He downed the fiery liquid in a single gulp.
A bitter, ominous darkness slipped over him.
How strange that fate had brought her into his life, into his bed…into his heart. Little by little, she had pulled down the barriers around his heart as no other woman ever had…as no other woman ever would.
It struck him then, that in the days since his marriage, the restlessness that had plagued him for years was no more. With Arabella, each day was unique and fresh…like morning dew upon a newly formed leaf bursting into the world, cherished by nature, glistening bright in the sunshine. It was like seeing the world all over again, after a long, long journey into darkness, returning to find a world full of vibrance and color. For Justin, it was a feeling utterly foreign to him.
And the nights…sweet Lord, the nights! She turned to him eagerly, denying him nothing. Giving all that he asked and more.
And what had he done?
Exactly what she had said. He had pushed her away.
His lips twisted. Was this God’s way of punishing him? he wondered blackly. Of making him pay for what he was? For the life of him, he could not explain what drove him.
It was just as he’d told Arabella. He was…who he was.
He would never change, he thought bleakly. He couldn’t.
He didn’t know how.
The night eroded. The moon sank low in the sky.
Hours later his heavy footsteps trudged up the stairs.
In his room — their room — Arabella lay sleeping. Sliding off his robe, he slipped into bed beside her, taking care not to wake her. In her sleep, she turned toward him, as if to seek him out, though God knew it was the last thing in the world she should have done. Knowing he couldn’t stop himself, Justin pulled her into his embrace.
Her hand came to rest in the middle of his chest. For a timeless instant, her fingertips lay poised directly above his heart. Then she relaxed, nestling against him as if he were all that she desired.
Overcome by the need to touch her, he slid the back of his knuckles over her cheeks. They came away wet with tears.
He froze.
Wrenching shame spilled through his gut. His arms tightened. He felt charred inside.
“Arabella,” he said raggedly. “Oh, God.” He’d been so afraid he would hurt her…and he had. He’d made her cry. Cry.
The blackness within him yawned deeper. She was sweet and pure and he was a fiend. He’d always known it. His father had known it.
Perhaps it was better this way, he thought bleakly. Better that she see him for the wicked, heartless bastard that he was.
She might have walked into his life, into his arms, but she would never stay. Never in a million years. Best to take what he could, while he could, for as long as it lasted.
Because God knew, it wouldn’t last forever.
In his heart, there was never any doubt.
It was inevitable, perhaps: He dreamed that night. He dreamed he was back at Thurston Hall. It was June. The night was warm. Through the fog in his brain, he realized he was drunk again. Stumbling just outside his father’s study…
The memory sharpened, spreading like a bloodstain.
His father barred his way.
“Where the devil have you been?”
“What, my lord, you wish an account of the night’s activities? Perhaps we should be seated. This could take some time, for the evening’s entertainment was interesting, shall we say. I give you fair warning, though, it’s altogether possible you may be shocked —”
Again he heard his father’s voice, stabbing at him, the prick of a knife.
“Cease! I’ve no intention of listening to your filth…Look at you, so drunk you can hardly stand! And you reek of cheap perfume! God, but you are so very much your mother’s brat! She shamed me, the witch! She shamed my good name, as you shame me!”
In his sleep, Justin flinched. Yet still he could hear his father, thundering through the walls of his mind, hurtling through the dark, ripping through the barriers of time and death — until it was just the two of them, standing outside the study.
“All these years I’ve had to look at you, staring back at me with her eyes, with her smile. Reminding me what she did, what she was — a whore who would spread her legs for any man who would have her.”
“No,” Justin muttered. “No.”
“And you are no better. Your blood is tainted, as she was tainted.”
There were hands on him. Hands shaking his shoulder. “Justin,” said a voice. “Justin, wake up.”
He was still caught up in the past, snared in the tangled web of the dream.
“No decent woman will ever have you, boy. No decent woman will ever want you!”
His arm thrust wide. “No,” he shouted. “No!”
A sharp, feminine cry shattered the night.
He bolted upright. His head came around wildly. Arabella was scrambling up from the floor beside the bed.
Sanity return in a rush. “Arabella! Christ, did I hurt you?” He dragged her up beside him.
“No,” she said jerkily. “I’m fine. Really.”
She was on her knees beside him, her eyes scouring his face.
“You were dreaming, Justin. Shouting.”
“Yes.” Releasing her, he sank back against the wall. He stabbed his fingers into his forehead, as if to drive out the memory.
Tentatively she touched his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He was still shaking.
“It seemed…so real. What were you dreaming of?”
“My father,” he whispered.
He raised his head. In his eyes was something naked, something stark and lonely and beseeching. He looked so like a hurt little boy she nearly cried out. She had the strangest sense that he was floundering, uncertain of himself. But why? Why?
Blindly she spoke. Blindly she pleaded. “Please, Justin. Please, just…talk to me. I can’t live like this. With this festering between us.” She gave a tiny little shake of her head. “I don’t want to.”
He touched her then. With the pad of his thumb, he whisked away the dampness on her cheek. “I hurt you before,” he said with a touch of ragged harshness. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you again. But —” his shoulders hunched up, then down. “I’m not sure I can tell you. I’m not sure I can tell…anyone.”
The tension that constricted his body was immense. She sensed he was fighting some fierce inner demon.
“Try, Justin. Please try.”
The silence of the world seemed to drift between them.
Finally he spoke. “If I tell you, you’ll hate me.” It was a flat, hollow prediction.
“No. No. I could never hate you, Justin. Never.”
Something bitterly dark and ominous crept into his features. “Even if I told you I killed my father?”
“You didn’t. You couldn’t. You wouldn’t.” Conviction gathered full and ripe within her.
“Believe it, Arabella. Believe it, for it’s true.” He shook his head when he saw the puzzled frown settle upon her brow. “Oh, not in the way you might think.”
“How, then?” she challenged. “How?”
He spread his hands wide and looked at them. “With my wickedness,” he said in an odd, strained whisper.
“Tell me what happened,” she said softly.
The story emerged bit by bit. His voice, his features, were void of all emotion. He didn’t look at her as he spoke.
Listening to him, Arabella’s chest began
to ache. She began to gain a very clear picture of his childhood. A little boy who struggled to please his father, to no avail. No wonder he said that Sebastian had been both mother and father to him and Julianna, more than his own…and little wonder that he and his father were ever at odds. Little wonder that he had grown rebellious and bitter.
“When I was seventeen, he caught me stealing into the house at dawn. I was foxed. He was furious.” A harsh laugh emerged. “Nothing new there, of course. We quarreled. He called my mother a whore. Of course, I knew it was true. All of England knew it was true. My mother was a vain creature who knew of her beauty and used it to entice men. To seduce them. Sometimes I do believe my mother, with her own pie de vivre, would have spread her legs for any man simply to spite my father. And my blood was tainted, you see. My blood was hers. That’s why he hated me. Because I looked like my mother. He held me in the same contempt, the same disdain. He told me so…oh, so many times! Never in front of Sebastian, of course. But that night…he shouted that I was a wastrel. That I was just like my mother.”
Arabella was shocked. “Justin, it was he who was wicked, not you…never you!”
“No. You’re wrong. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to spite him.”
“But who can blame you?” she protested. “My God,” she burst out, “what kind of man would say such awful things to his own son?”
“Ah, but there’s the thing, you see. It’s entirely possible I’m not his son. That none of us are. Not me. Not Julianna. Perhaps not even Sebastian.”
Arabella’s mind whirled giddily. Her lips parted. “Are you saying that he is not your father?”
For the longest time Justin said nothing. “I don’t know. Don’t you see? Given my mother’s reputation, it’s entirely possible… I’ve often wondered if my mother was the only one who knew for certain…but if she did, it was a secret she took to her grave.”
His eyes darkened. “It was that night that I realized…and I taunted him with it. I taunted him with my mother’s infidelities and asked if he knew if his children were even his own.
“He was livid. And I was so very pleased! And I laughed, Arabella. I laughed. He started to shout at me…It was then he fell to the floor. He clutched his chest. And I left him there. I left him there.”
Perfect 2 - A Perfect Groom Page 22
