by Mary Brendan
‘My God, you’re an infuriating little…’ The reproof concluded, unfinished, in a sigh as he reached for her.
Elizabeth slapped out at his hand. ‘What are you doing?’ she hissed at him, flattening against the carriage again.
‘What do you think I’m doing?’ he asked softly. ‘I’m preparing to kiss my fiancée—’
‘Well, don’t!’ she shrilled, raising a guarding hand in readiness to defend her. Her eyes darted from him to the road as though seeking another vehicle. ‘’Tis time to turn about anyhow. ’Twill soon be dark.’
‘I’ll turn about when I’ve achieved what I set out to do and not before.’
Elizabeth tensed, raked his face with purple eyes. ‘Which is?’
‘I want to talk to you. Properly talk to you. There’s a great deal we need to discuss in depth and in private. This is private enough.’ He gave her an encouraging smile. ‘I’ll start the conversation by answering your earlier question: no, I’m not in any way ashamed of you, Elizabeth. I don’t give a toss about polite society or what it thinks of me or you. It can ostracise us both for all I care. I’ve no time or inclination to bother with Janus-faced bores. I have all the family and friends I need. As for your clothes: the first time I saw you at Edwina’s you looked oddly dishevelled, intentionally so, I imagine…as now. Unfortunately, a shabby gown doesn’t detract from your allure.’ That mockery was directed more at himself. ‘You look delectable, however done up. Besides, it’s what’s underneath that interests me. Your character and personality,’ he explained with studied gravity as a suspicious look was cast on him. ‘But, you guessed correctly: I avoided the centre of town because I’m not quite ready for our relationship to be made public.’
When she said nothing but continued staring sulkily at the hedges, he asked drily, ‘Would you care to know why that is?’
‘No. I can guess.’
‘And?’
‘You’re ashamed of me.’
Ross swore beneath his breath. ‘Do you ever listen to what I say?’
‘Oh, yes. But I seldom believe you sincere.’ She barely paused before jibing, ‘I told you to return me home. Do you ever listen to what I say?’
‘Oh, yes. But I seldom believe you sincere.’
Looking away was impossible; she tried, but her gaze was again adhering to eyes the colour of caramel. This time as a hand came out slowly towards her she simply watched it, unblinking, as a rabbit might mesmerically eye an approaching snake. A solitary dark finger brushed downwards over the silken contours of her alabaster cheek, stroking, soothing. ‘So…now it’s your turn. I’d like you to talk to me. Tell me things…important things about your past. If you like, I’ll tell you important things about my past, too. We’ll share those secrets that husbands and wives should know about each other’s history.’
Thick lashes screened violet eyes. She felt her heart thump painfully slowly, her lungs ache with little use. It was what she’d been dreading, yet expecting. Buried in her mind had been a thread of hope that he might be different. Yet she knew all along he wasn’t. For all his clever phrasing…all his sly vocabulary of sharing and caring, all he wanted was crude titillation, as they all did. He wanted her to tell him things…of course he did.
‘I need to know, Elizabeth,’ he said gently. ‘I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.’
‘You’re so…so utterly predictable! Such a despicable lecher!’ she spat. ‘You’re no different to Linus Savage or any of the others. Shall I tell you how many men have sidled up to beg or buy a few explicit details? Would you like to hear that? Did you think your smut original? Unique? I’m surprised at you, my lord! With all your filthy experience should you not have a little imagination when it comes to sordid…sordid….’ The words suffocated, jammed in her throat by fury and fear. She blinked rapidly, endeavouring to quell the sob she could sense tightening her chest. A hand scrabbled desperately behind for the door, searching to liberate her. She was prepared to shelter in that herd of bulls if it meant escaping him. From the corner of her eye she noticed him slide on the hide seat towards her and she twisted to lash out blindly with both fists.
A vice-like grip crushed her hands in his, keeping them utterly still. She couldn’t move one bone in one finger, yet strangely they felt unhurt.
‘If you’re determined to continually throw punches at me, Elizabeth, you should learn to do it properly,’ he said quietly. ‘All this girlish hand flailing is far too provocative…and far too ineffectual.’ He forced the left hand up, the other down and positioned slightly behind it. ‘Keep your thumbs in to protect them; feint with your left, then bring the right through.’ He jabbed the hand towards him, allowing her soft knuckles to graze his abrasive jaw. ‘Keep your guard up all the time or you’ll leave yourself vulnerable.’
As his tutoring tailed off and he relaxed his grip, she flung him off so savagely she tumbled back onto the squabs. Within a second she was recovered enough to launch herself forward again, angry humiliation puckering her features and curling small digits into claws. He was quite ready for her. Dark hands banded about her wrists, driving them back against the carriage. He slid them together above her head, anchored them there with five lean, insolent fingers while five more moved leisurely towards her unprotected face. The fork of his hand fitted over her pointed little chin, forced it up so she couldn’t avoid his mockery, before slipping to straddle her willowy white throat. A thumb softly traced her mouth. ‘Why don’t you ever listen?’ he chided, but a rueful smile just touched his mouth.
‘I’ll kill you,’ she choked, twitching her face away from his indolent caress. ‘I swear I’ll kill you the first chance I get. You’d be a fool to marry me, even for a fortune. I’ll catch you unawares and you’ll never live to squander it. So you might as well strangle me first…before I shoot you. I’ve got a gun…’
‘What sort?’
Elizabeth sniffed and blinked at him, momentarily shocked out of hysteria. ‘What sort?’ she echoed in a breathless gasp.
‘A duelling pistol? A blunderbuss? A hunting rifle? What sort?’
‘Oh, I don’t know!’ she cried. ‘What difference does it make? It’s good enough to shoot you. Oh, I’ll…I’ll stab you then! I’ve a silver dress dagger that was once my papa’s. I know it’s a valuable Jackson and sharp. When I was fourteen I cut myself on it.’
‘Did you? Where?’ he asked softly, barely smiling.
Elizabeth screwed shut her eyes to deny his warm honey gaze. ‘My knee. It fell out of my hand,’ she whispered.
‘You didn’t listen to your father, either, did you? I’ll wager he told you to keep it sheathed or leave it alone.’
‘You think you know everything, don’t you?’ she hissed at him, mortified at his perception on something so precious and private. She began struggling to free her hands, still enclosed in his, over her head.
‘No. I don’t know everything. Some things I know. Some things I can guess. Some things I’d like you to tell me. I’d like you to tell me why Edwina said now she really is ruined the night I took you home. It seems an odd thing to say, all things considered. Why would your grandmother say that, Elizabeth?’
Elizabeth composed her face into a supercilious mask, flicked up her lids. ‘I’ve no idea, my lord. Why do you not ask her?’ she sweetly suggested. Then snapped, ‘Let go of my hands.’
‘I’m asking you. If I let go, are you about to scratch…gouge…slap? I’m getting tired of restraining you this way. That other way is far more pleasurable.’
‘What other…?’ The words tailed off as languid-lidded eyes dropped suggestively to her softly parted mouth.
She jerked her hands and this time he let them free. The momentum whizzed them dangerously close to his face. She panicked, snatched them away and controlled them, letting them fall to her lap where they clasped demurely.
He smiled at her. ‘Very good,’ he praised. ‘You’re taking good advice again. See how easy it can be?’
She turn
ed her head, haughtily tilted her chin. ‘I hate you,’ she declared with great aplomb.
‘No, you don’t.’
‘I do!’
‘No, you don’t. You can’t. My mother says you’re just right for me.’
Elizabeth stared at him. ‘Your mother? You’ve been discussing me with your mother?’
‘Shouldn’t I? She’s soon to be your mother, too. She thinks you’re enchanting: sweet and mannerly and beautiful…just right for me.’
Elizabeth scoured his face for irony. So far as she could discern, his wry grimace seemed to mock his entitlement to her charms rather than her right to lay claim to them. The awful incongruity of his mother’s opinion considering her recent bad behaviour made an uneasy flush singe her cheeks. Her tongue tip circled her mouth and she frowned and squirmed a little on the seat, disconcerted. ‘Well…well you must thank her for her kind compliments. I…I very much liked her, too. I liked all your family and your friends. You’re very lucky to have such agreeable kith and kin. I’ll own to being surprised you could call them such,’ she couldn’t help qualifying her concessions with a sniff.
‘I’m glad you like them. I hoped you would as they’re soon to be your kith and kin. Everyone present said how engaging they found you. Where’s your ring?’ he asked without pausing. He raised her left hand from her lap and looked at the nude fingers.
Elizabeth had the grace to blush again after learning of such pleasing plaudits from such fine people…his people! She thought fast and said quickly, ‘I put it in my pocket. ’Tis a fraction too large and I’m afraid to lose it. Wearing it to Wapping seemed a little ill advised.’
‘Indeed. Going there against my wishes would have been equally ill advised. I’ll have it made smaller for you.’
She snatched back her hand and inspected her manicure. His hand slid, palm up, into her line of vision. Speedily she retrieved the ring from her pocket, then placed it on his palm.
‘Do you not like it?’
Elizabeth’s head jerked back and she met his steadily watching eyes. Part of her resented him for asking, even if it was a quite pertinent enquiry. Every passing moment was making her feel increasingly chagrined and churlish. She could tell he genuinely wanted to know if his gift pleased her. ‘Of course I like it. ’Tis a magnificent ring, but…’
‘But I gave it to you. Had Havering given it to you, no doubt it would have remained constantly on your finger.’
Elizabeth swallowed and said nothing.
‘Do you pine for him still?’ he asked harshly, returning the ring to its rightful place with a slow, sensual stubbornness.
‘Of course not,’ she answered quietly, studying the glowing jewels that seemed to obliterate half a slender digit.
‘Of course not? Am I supposed to understand how you feel about him now? All you show me, Elizabeth, is a prickly surface. All I see is a little girl huddling, wounded, behind an armoury of pride. Talk to me. Tell me how you feel…share it with me!’
Desperation coarsened his voice and it curled her stomach, made mute the reflexive cry that she wasn’t wounded and how dare he say she was. He sounded as though he cared. He sounded as though he would comfort her, salve the pain… With an instinct honed from ten years’ injury, she reinforced her armour, put up her shield. ‘I like it best when you talk to me.’ An idle hand movement scattered a fragmented rainbow from the diamond. ‘How am I to know how you feel about Cecily Booth if you never say?’ she parodied. ‘Why do you not tell me about her?’
‘What do you want to know?’
She stilled and stared ahead. She had anticipated her outrageous impertinence would have him blustering, bawling her out, then, disgusted, taking her home. Young ladies—even damaged young ladies—did not acknowledge the existence of any gentleman’s arbitrary amours. It was a taboo subject never broached by the decorous. But then she had been branded anything but that. Carelessly, she tossed her blonde head about, then looked into his narrowed hawk’s eyes. ‘What do you think I ought know?’
He grimaced thoughtfulness, while remaining totally dispassionate. ‘Perhaps that she’s nowhere near as classically beautiful as you. But she’s pretty enough. She’s some years younger, I should say, some decades more mature…more experienced…’
Elizabeth felt the same odd writhing pain as she had when she’d first seen him with Rebecca in the fabric emporium and imagined they were lovers. Well, she had asked about his mistress; and he was uninhibitedly telling her. And she wished he wasn’t. She no longer wanted to know. ‘How ideal she sounds!’ she exploded breathily. ‘As you insist you’re not a fortune-hunter, I really think, sir, you ought make an honest woman of her, not me.’ She had again wrenched the ring from her finger whilst speaking. About to throw it back at him, she noticed the latent triumph in his eyes, and it stirred her vexation to new heights. He understood very well how mention of his paramour had affected her. The need to thwart his arrogance helped her retain a tenuous grip on her self-control. Carefully, very carefully, she let the ring drop to the leather seat between them, then, head high, turned away. She even managed an insouciant smile at the thrush starting to warble atop the hawthorn hedge and tilted her head this way and that, examining rain clouds gathering in the distance, verdant, damp countryside: everything spied from her side of the carriage held a certain fascination.
‘What makes you think she’s ideal or that I might marry her?’
Elizabeth darted a quelling look at him, then found, again, she couldn’t drag her eyes away. Silently, soulfully, she ceded…begged him to stop. She was not equal to this. She had again stupidly started something she was not fit to finish. She was no more able to win this verbal battle than she was able to beat him with her puny fists. Shamming indifference while he listed his mistress’s attributes was beyond her. As he had pitilessly impressed on her while drawing comparisons, she possessed no such sophistication. ‘Take me home, please. I…I feel unwell…I had a headache earlier…’ she murmured, closing her eyes against the pretty bird bobbing close by. There was no mistaking she had made an utter fool of herself. What was he seeing now? A damaged little girl, or a cowed little mouse? A risible spectacle in either case, she was sure.
‘Does it hurt?’
Unsure to what he referred, she hesitated in replying. Then, with aching perception, she realised ambiguity was intended. Did Cecily Booth hurt? Did her erstwhile, callow suitor’s abandonment hurt? Did her ostracism hurt? Did her head hurt? Yes! she wanted to scream. Yes! Yes! Yes! She simply frowned at the first fat raindrops spoiling the dusty earth. They trailed the window like slothful tears. She nodded. He could make of that caitiff’s response what he would.
The hand that slid beneath the pleat of hair at her nape felt warm and firm. Gently he urged her towards him and, a little token stiffness apart, she went to him. Her head drooped on to his shoulder and when his arm came across, pulling her properly close, she made no objection. Soothing fingers massaged at her neck and his head dipped until his mouth rested against her silky silver hair. ‘There’s one other thing you ought know about Miss Booth…’ He tightened his hold on her, anticipating that her tension meant she might try to free herself. ‘And I didn’t intend telling you this, Elizabeth, because…’ she heard the smile in his voice ‘…because, my frustrating, infuriating little love, there’s a part of me that likes you jealous…likes to know you’re not as indifferent to me as you’d have me believe.’ As she melted against him, gentle fingers resumed the soporific stroking at her nape. ‘But then caring about you, wanting to protect you from hurt, seems to have come out of nowhere and taken over my life. So, whichever fool has told you she’s my mistress is a little out of touch with current affairs. I finished with her a while ago.’
‘You don’t have to tell me…I don’t care…’
‘I know I don’t have to tell you,’ he answered drily. ‘God knows, it’s not the sort of thing any man relishes discussing with his future wife.’ As though to reinforce her status, he gently slid the
ring back onto her finger, then curled it, as though locking it there. He brushed a thumb across the gem. ‘But you did ask and I don’t want something so trivial causing you additional pain.’
She grabbed at his arms, pushed back to look into his eyes. What she saw made her breath catch achingly in her throat. For a timeless moment it seemed she hovered in a dizzying limbo, bathed in a gilded, beatific warmth. She could see a tiny reflection of herself in his shining agate eyes, as though he had already absorbed her, used his body to cocoon her against harm. She read the words there, too, and held her breath waiting for them…waiting. She watched his lips, saw them part…then lower to hers. He kissed her and there was such tenderness in his attentive caress, such devotion in the hands that cradled her face, tremored against her flushing skin, that she gave herself up to it, kissing him back shyly with all the sweet gratitude she could muster, while in her mind she consoled herself with thinking the words she had expected to hear. Words no man had spoken to her for ten years: ‘I love you, Elizabeth…I love you…’
Chapter Twelve
He had that look about him, Luke realised, a pang of anxiety cooling the film of perspiration on his skin.
Pulling off his visor, he sat on the bench, discarding his foil on the ground by his feet. He roughly dried his face, briskly towelled his damp, ebony hair, then settled back to properly spectate. His brother was advancing using a spare, efficiency that demonstrated he was keen to conclude the contest. With perfect balance and a powerful, easy athleticism, he was driving his adversary back towards the perimeter of the arena. A final riposte, and the tip of his épée threatened a thick, sinewy throat. Henry Bateman, no mean swordsman himself, put up his hands in submission, laughed, shrugged. They saluted and shook hands, then Ross was walking towards Luke, and Henry was folding over at the waist, exhausted.
‘Good bout,’ Luke mentioned conversationally. ‘You slipped under his guard a couple of times. I’m glad the buttons were secure; you were attacking like a demon. Not in training for anything in particular, I hope?’
