This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2012 by Jillian Eaton
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the express written permission of the author.
Cover art photography courtesy of Helena Beumer. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
“Marcus, I want a divorce.”
Marcus William Thomas Windfair, the seventh Duke of Kensington, looked up from his ledgers to stare dispassionately at his wife. She gazed back at him unflinchingly, her rosebud mouth set in an uncompromising line and her sapphire blue eyes alight with a stubborn glow he knew only too well.
When Marcus first met Catherine Nettle at her debut ball four years ago she had been the most fetching girl in the room. He had been drawn to her almost immediately, entranced by the bewitching curve of her lips and the musical sound of her laughter. Unfortunately, womanhood had only served to take his wife from enchanting to breathtakingly beautiful.
She was petite, almost ethereally so, with a willow like build, soft ivory skin, and a tousled waterfall of gleaming blond hair. This morning she was dressed in a blue gown that accentuated her nipped in waist and delicate features. Her hair was swept back in a loose chignon and pearl earrings hung daintily from her ears. The earrings had been his wedding gift to her, and she had taken to wearing them only when she wanted something.
“No,” he said flatly before turning his attention back to the row of figures he had been calculating. A slim hand descended on his desk, grasped the ledger, and plucked it away. “Catherine,” he sighed. “You are being childish. I do not have time for one of your tantrums this morning.”
“Tantrums?” A golden eyebrow shot up. “I do not have tantrums, darling, I have moods. Now I have all the paperwork in order. All I need is your signature.”
“For the third time,” Marcus grinded out, “we are not getting divorced. It is simply not done. Now give me the ledger and get the bloody hell out of my study.”
“Not done often,” Catherine corrected him, holding the ledger just out of reach. “But it is done. We do not love each other, Marcus. We never have.” She gazed at him beseechingly; her blue eyes swirling with emotion.
Marcus wondered absently if she would begin to cry. Catherine was a magnificent actress, a talent he unfortunately had not discovered until after they were wed. Following their first tumultuous year of marriage they had more or less gone their separate ways. He lived at Kensington estate during the winter months while she flitted from ball to ball in London, and she came to the country with the rest of the Ton during the summer while he conducted his business from the city. It was a convenient arrangement. Or at least it had been until she got the ridiculous notion of divorce stuck in her head.
For the past two weeks she had hounded him like a dog worrying a bone, even going so far as to follow him from London to Kensington, something she had vowed never to do barring some kind of life threatening accident, where upon she had informed him she would most gladly come to the country to attend his funeral.
With distance between them Marcus could begin to forget what his wife smelled like. What she tasted like. He could focus on her bad traits, of which there were certainly plenty to choose from. He could even begin to ignore the pitiable, embarrassing fact that he was still irrevocably in love with a woman who, by all accounts, despised the very ground he walked on.
Now, however, she was there every time he turned around. In his study, in the dining room at dinner, in the stables with his favorite mare. She had become a second shadow, one he neither needed nor wanted. His wife was driving him mad.
“I will be leaving to visit Woodsgate on the morrow,” he said as sudden inspiration struck. Wondering why he had not thought of it sooner, his mouth curved in a faint smile. Catherine may have left the luxury of her London townhouse to follow him out to the country, but she would never traipse halfway across Scotland to go to Woodsgate, a small, downtrodden fifty acre hunting lodge that had been left to him by a distant uncle. “I do not know how long I will be gone. It would probably be best if you returned to London in my absence.”
“Woodsgate?” Catherine echoed. Her lips parted in dismay. “What in heaven’s name for? You have not been there for nearly two years.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You would not be going there to avoid me, would you Marcus? That would be very ill mannered of you.”
“And what if I am?” he snapped, standing in one smooth motion to lean into his desk with long arms well muscled from years of riding. “What are you doing here, Catherine? What is all of this? I have told you, there will be no divorce and that is the end of it! Now do as I say and get out.”
“No!” she shouted back, taking him by surprise. Even when she was in the throes of one of her infamous tempers, his wife rarely raised her voice.
“No, Marcus,” she said in a calmer tone. “You will not ignore me this time.” The sun streamed through the gossamer curtains at her back and illuminated her entire body in a soft, otherworldly glow. She looked like a furious fairy queen bent on ravaging war against her enemy: namely, him.
Sweeping his dark hair from his forehead in an agitated gesture, Marcus turned and crossed to his liquor cabinet in the corner of the room. He poured two shots of his finest scotch and downed them both in rapid succession.
“Drinking before noon?” Catherine sneered. “How like you, Marcus.”
“Acting like a bitch before noon? How like you, Catherine,” he countered swiftly, keeping his back to her. He heard her gasp of indignation and then his left shoulder exploded in pain. Whirling, he realized she had hurled the bronze stature of a nude woman he kept on the corner of his desk at him. Catherine had always despised the statue; she never imagined it was modeled after her.
“That bloody well hurt,” he growled, rubbing his throbbing shoulder.
Her small chest heaving, Catherine crossed her arms and glared at him. “Good! I hope it did! I have said it before and I shall say it again, Marcus. I am not leaving until you give me what I want.”
In two powerful strides he was across the study and standing in front of her. Before she had time to react he curled one hand around the small of her back and yanked her against him until they were chest to chest, belly to belly, groin to groin. He felt her sharp intake of breath and held her tightly as she tried to twist away. When she raised her small fists to strike at him he captured her delicate wrists in one easy swipe and smiled grimly. Enough was enough. He was done indulging Catherine’s fantasies of divorce. It was time to put her firmly in her place.
“Marcus! Let me go,” she protested, continuing to turn this way and that in a futile attempt to escape.
A sharp elbow caught him on the side of his head and he grunted, but did not lessen his grip. “No,” he said, his voice hoarse as her writhing attempts to free herself spurred an immediate reaction in the heart of his loins. “You are my wife Catherine, and while I know that notion no longer holds any appeal for you we took oaths before God. I will not break them!”
“But why?” she cried desperately. “I am not one of your things to be put on a shelf and left to collect dust. We hardly see each other as it is. We… we have not shared the same bedroom in over three years.”
A fact Marcus was painfully aware of at the moment. Catherine kept her face turned stubbornly away from him, but he could see the slender column of her
throat and the pulse that fluttered there, slight as a butterfly’s wing. The urge to lean in and nip at the exposed flesh, to nuzzle and lick and kiss the ivory skin, was so tempting he released her abruptly before he did something he would soundly regret later.
“As I said, I will be leaving for Woodsgate tomorrow,” he gritted out, stepping back behind the desk to hide his bulging arousal. “Return to the city and never speak of divorce again. I am done indulging your whims. I am your husband and you will do as I command!”
Catherine’s eyes rounded as twin blotches of color appeared high on her cheeks. Her mouth curled derisively. “I am not a dog, Marcus. You cannot simply order me to go here or go there and command me to forget things. Go to your rotting shack in the highlands. I shall still be here when you return. I will not stop following you, dearest husband of mine, until I get what I want. I will make your life a living hell!”
Slowly Marcus sank back down into his leather chair. His jaw rigid, he pinned his wife with a stare that had made lesser men turn and cower. Catherine did not so much as flinch. “Are you threatening me?” he asked in disbelief.
A smile curved her lips, but her eyes remained hard as diamonds. “Of course not, darling,” she said sweetly. “I am promising you. Have a wonderful trip. I will see you when you return.”
With a growl Marcus shot up out of the chair, to do exactly what he had not the faintest idea, but Catherine must have finally recognized the murderous intent in his gaze for in a flurry of blue skirts she fled the room, shutting the door smartly behind her.
“Bloody hell,” Marcus said wearily. Rubbing a hand down his face he turned to the liquor cabinet and poured another shot. He contemplated the tumbler half filled with scotch, staring long and hard into the amber depths before tossing it back with one hard swallow. Setting the glass down, he went to the front window and pulled one curtain aside to gaze out upon the lawn below.
He was not surprised to see Catherine crossing the evenly cut grass with long strides, her blond hair cascading down her back in a riot of curls and her small hands clenched in angry fists at her sides. With her back to him he could only imagine the curses she was filling the air with, and a smile rose unbidden to his mouth.
Even before their marriage Catherine had been vexed with a hot temper that flamed instantly and cooled quickly. Her favorite method for dissipating a bad mood was to go for a vigorous walk. There had been a time when they used to walk together hand in hand, teasing and laughing and saying all the things new lovers said.
Now, Marcus thought, his lips twisting bitterly at the irony of it all, she walks alone cursing my name and I remain in my study cursing hers. What a conventional marriage we have.
Brooding, he sat back behind his desk and turned over the next ledger.
As her husband suspected, Catherine was cursing his name as she stalked across the front lawn at a feverish pace.
“What an arrogant, pig headed, dim witted bounder!” She crossed the stone drive and turned right; skirting the stables to head towards a trail in the woods she had walked many, many times before.
Beneath the canopy of broad green leaves, flickering rays of sun, and chirping songbirds she could finally let down her guard and take a deep, relaxing breath. Raising her hands above her head she pivoted in a slow, lazy circle, stretching out the muscles that had tightened in her back and neck from holding herself so stiffly in Marcus’ presence. The man brought out the absolute worst in her.
If she was completely honest with herself Catherine would be the first to admit the last thing she wanted in the entire world was to divorce her husband. It would be a long process, fraught with gossip and speculation. His reputation would be tarnished and hers ruined completely. But she simply could not stand it anymore. The months of separation, the sparring words they exchanged whenever they were forced together, the way he insisted on ordering her about as if she were one of his poor servants instead of his wife. How different it had been when they first met.
Marcus had been charming, attentive, and loving; everything she ever dreamed of finding in a husband. After their initial introduction she had been consumed by a whirlwind romance of dancing, long strolls through Hyde Park, and secret, passionate kisses. When he proposed four months later she readily accepted. Both of their parents had approved of the match, as had the entire Ton.
It had been, Catherine reflected as she leaned against a towering oak tree and hugged her arms to her chest, the perfect fairytale. Until everything changed.
She could not say exactly when they had begun to grow apart. Perhaps it started when Marcus had gone across the Atlantic to Boston for six months, despite her pleas for him to stay. He had left her alone in Kensington and she remained for as long as she could, but she had still been a young woman of eighteen and with nothing to occupy her time, had returned to London within the month to enjoy the rest of the Season sans her husband. She knew there had been rumors, and accepted the blame as her own for she had done nothing to dispel them.
She now accepted that a small part of her had been hoping to lure Marcus home with her lascivious behavior, but if he received any of the letters she wrote him, hinting in not so subtle detail at her exploits, he gave no sign.
When he finally did return he was aloof and standoffish; nothing like the man who had made love to her the night before he left and vowed to think of her every moment of every day until he returned.
That had been, Catherine thought with a sigh, three and a half long years ago. Since then they had only seen each other once or twice a year, and then only in passing. Because of their lengthy separation she had thought Marcus would be delighted at the idea of a divorce, and quite frankly she could not imagine the reason why he wasn’t. She even knew he had a mistress, a red haired widow who stayed with him in London and whom he visited often in the country. He thought she had one as well, but she didn’t. She had certainly entertained the idea, as it was not uncommon amidst the Ton for married women to share a bed outside of their husbands. In fact, it was often quite encouraged. But when it had come down to it, Catherine simply could not make herself. She may have been a flirt, but she never had been – and never would be – an adulteress.
“I need to be free of you Marcus,” she whispered, only daring to say what she truly thought out loud in the privacy of the woods where nothing save the birds and the squirrels could hear her. “I cannot remain married to a man who despises the very sight of me.” I cannot remain married to a man I love. The words echoed in her head, but she could not force them past her lips. Some things could not be spoken out loud, even in seclusion.
Lifting the hem of her skirts from the forest floor Catherine turned and started back towards the estate, her forehead set in three fine lines as she worried what to do next. There was no telling how long Marcus would remain at Woodsgate. The man was stubborn as an ass, and she had no doubt he would stay away just to spite her. In fact, she was certain of it.
“But he cannot stay away,” she mused, a smile dawning slowly across her face, “if I go to him.”
Chapter Two
Catherine was soundly regretting her decision to travel halfway across Scotland when, two weeks later, she found herself stranded at the foot of a mud strewn hill with a broken carriage and an irate driver who barely spoke decipherable English. It was also raining, great big buckets of rain that had soaked her clear through to the skin in a matter of seconds after she left the carriage to investigate why they had stopped so suddenly.
“Sir, excuse me. Excuse me, sir!” she called into the rain, and when that failed procured a white handkerchief from the pocket of her cloak and waved it wildly in the air to get the driver’s attention.
A short, squat man with a shock of red hair and a bulbous nose, the driver had barely spoken two words to her since she had hired him in Carlisle to take her all the way to Falkirk, the closest town she could find on a map to Woodsgate.
“Woot do ye want?” the driver asked, looking up crossly from where he was c
rouched next to one of the back wheels.
Unfamiliar with carriages and the reasons as to why one might stop working, Catherine took a hesitant step forward and, careful to keep her skirts out of the ankle deep mud, ducked her head to get a closer look at the wheel the driver was hovering over. It just looked like a plain wheel to her, a little muddy around the rim but certainly usable.
“Are you certain it is broken?” she asked. “Perhaps it is merely stuck.”
Shooting her an incredulous look beneath his bushy red eyebrows, the driver reached out and grasped one of the large inner spokes. He gave it a good yank and when it popped free he waved it angrily in the air, advancing on Catherine with deliberate steps and shouting something she could not hear above the pounding rain.
“I… I see it is broken! I shall certainly pay to repair any damages and if you would be so kind as to call me another carriage I will – oh! HELP!” she yelped as, in her haste to back away from the infuriated driver, her ankle caught around a root and she went flying backwards into the muck. Unable to save herself, she landed with a loud “oomph” and looked down at her dress in shocked dismay. Splattered with mud and dirt and other brown things she did not even want to contemplate, her maroon traveling habit was ruined beyond repair. As were her leather ankle boots, fine silk gloves, and brand new lace and satin trimmed bonnet. At least, she thought with a grimace as she pulled one hand free of the muck, the three trunks she had filled to the brim with dresses, bonnets, and unmentionables were safe and dry inside the carriage.
Climbing awkwardly to her feet, she shoved a lock of hair behind her ear and lifted her chin to look back at the driver – just in time to see him taking her last trunk out of the carriage and heaving it to the side of what Scotland laughably called a road.
“What in the world are you doing?” she shrieked. Her arms waved madly as she stumbled down into the ditch after her trunks. Managing to grasp the brass handle of the smallest one she gave it a mighty heave, but the mud had taken hold of it and the trunk refused to move.
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