Lizzie sank into her deepest, most deferential curtsy. The duke inclined his head. “A pleasure, Miss Allbright. Welcome to Harcourt.” The sentiment was warm, but the tone in which the words themselves were spoken was frigidly polite.
Lizzie all but shivered as she thanked him and answered conventional queries about her journey. It seemed ice water ran in the veins of both Westruther men.
“Shall we?” said Rosamund. Quite naturally, she moved to take the duke’s arm and they preceded Steyne and Lizzie along the path.
As the others moved away, Lizzie heard Rosamund say, “I have the most delightful scheme for our entertainment, Your Grace. A play. And Cyprian shall write it for us.”
If someone’s entire body could wince, the duke’s did. “Spare us, child. Anything but that.”
Lizzie had been about to follow them when Steyne said, “Stay a moment, Lizzie. I must speak with you.”
For the first time, she looked at him directly, drank in his masculine beauty like a sot guzzles wine.
In the bright afternoon sunlight, she noticed everything about him. The way the broadcloth of his coat stretched to mold his shoulders and biceps. The way the shining leather of his top boots encased his legs, emphasizing the long, shapely strength of them. The way one tiny bright green leaf had settled on his lapel. She wanted to reach up to him and brush it away.
She stared into his starkly handsome face, and the image of him bending to her in that almost-kiss at the vicarage seemed to cloud her vision.
“Lizzie?” He was prompting her for an answer. She’d no idea what the question had been.
She shook her head, blinking. “I beg your pardon. I was woolgathering.”
And drat the man if he didn’t slant her a knowing, self-satisfied look that made her blush harder than before. She’d need to take an ice bath to bring her temperature down at this rate.
“I merely asked if you ride. You did not bring a horse with you.”
“Yes, I do ride.” Her father had been horse-mad. She’d practically been born in the saddle. “Miss Beauchamp kindly gave me the use of her second mare while I lived in Little Thurston.”
“Then I shall choose a mount for you from His Grace’s stables.”
“Thank you, my lord. Miss Beauchamp and I like to take our exercise early in summer, before it grows too hot.”
“I am engaged on some business for the duke tomorrow morning, or I would offer to accompany you.” He paused and a wicked gleam stole into his eye. “I do so enjoy an early-morning ride.”
She had the impression he was amused about something, but she didn’t pursue it. “Perhaps some other time,” she said.
She remembered a question she’d meant to ask him. “Lord Steyne—?”
“Will you not call me by my name, dear Lizzie?” said Steyne. “At least when we are not in company?”
She cleared her throat. “I suppose it would not hurt to call you … Xavier.” There, she’d said it. “In private.”
He tilted his head. “I rather like hearing my name on your lips. Say it again.”
She laughed, a little self-consciously. “Oh, Xavier, then.”
He nodded his approval. “What was it you wanted to know?”
For a moment, she couldn’t recall her question to mind. Then she said, “I was going to ask you whether this is a family party. Everyone I’ve met so far is a Westruther. Or married to one.”
“Why, yes,” said Lord Steyne—Xavier—as if surprised. “Didn’t I mention that?”
He hadn’t. “Doesn’t that make my presence rather, er, obvious?” she ventured.
Xavier shrugged. “Not particularly. Lydgate is always collecting strays and bringing them home with him. What will be more remarkable are the attentions I pay you while you are here.”
Anticipation hummed inside her. She hurried into speech. “I like your sister enormously. I am glad you explained to her about us. I should not have liked to deceive her.”
“Oh, she rang a peal over me for not telling her sooner,” said Xavier. “But she understands the circumstances. She seems to approve. Rosamund’s support will go a long way toward gaining you acceptance from the rest of the family.”
“Rosamund must have wondered what manner of female her brother had married,” murmured Lizzie. “I cannot think it disposed her to like me.”
“Fortunately, my sister has very good taste,” said Xavier.
She met his gaze, startled. His eyes held none of the hard mockery she had become accustomed to seeing there. A warm glow spread through her.
“Thank you,” she said. She smiled up at him and saw his eyes flare the smallest fraction, as if something surprised him.
He moved closer, and the shocking images of him setting his knee on her bed, looming over her, covering her that night, flitted through her mind. Only now could she acknowledge to herself that she was impatient for him to do it again.
“Lizzie?”
She blinked, wrenching her mind from those tantalizing thoughts. “Yes?”
The faintest smile settled on his lips. “What were you thinking of just now?”
Her cheeks heating, Lizzie glanced along the path toward the house. The figures of the duke and Rosamund had long disappeared out of sight. They were quite alone.
“I don’t remember.” She pressed a palm to her midriff, but that did not settle the flutter in her belly.
“You are blushing, I believe.” He laid his whip on a nearby tree stump and moved even closer, this time with intent.
She retreated, until she realized his maneuver had been calculated. He’d backed her against a sturdy oak.
He planted one hand against the tree beside her head and leaned in.
“Oh, please do not,” whispered Lizzie, her heart knocking against her ribs. “Someone will see.”
“Tell me what was in that head of yours.” Steyne brought up his free hand and ran the back of his knuckles down her temple, brushing her cheek. His voice deepened. “Was it something … wicked?”
Lizzie swallowed hard. “Of course not.”
She could barely speak for nervous anticipation. She wasn’t ready for this. She hadn’t expected him to move so soon. Wasn’t he supposed to be courting her properly here at Harcourt? The way he looked at her made her think of moving bodies and twisted sheets.
“Really?” He tilted his head. The black fans of his eyelashes veiled those sapphire eyes as he contemplated her mouth. “Then, my dear Lizzie,” he said softly, “let me give you something wicked to think about.”
He kissed her.
His lips were firm and gentle, coaxing and thrilling. He played with her, displaying confident control as she struggled to cling to her own self-possession. The kiss was all part of his plan, she knew that; yet she couldn’t seem to dredge up any defenses.
He was experienced and so skillful, she had no hope against him. His mouth became increasingly more demanding, until she lost all trace of her own thoughts and finally abandoned reason altogether. All she could do was feel.
The hand that had caressed her cheek slid down to stroke lightly along her shoulder. She shuddered, then realized his tongue had slid into her mouth, gaining entry on her gasp of surprise.
This kiss was a sinful mélange of shock and hunger and shivers of illicit pleasure; she was all nerve endings and skin and heat.
His lips drifted over her cheek. “I want you, Lizzie,” Xavier murmured into her ear. “Here. Now. I want to be inside you more than I’ve wanted anything in a long time.”
That brought her back to earth. She snapped into consciousness and pushed at him. “But … but you can’t.”
“Not here, certainly,” he said raising his head. “I’ll come to you tonight.”
He stepped back, and if she had not been thoroughly acquainted with the subtlety of his expressions by now, she would have thought him as cool as she was overheated.
But no. His gaze was hot on hers, and his chest rose and fell more rapidly than before.
“But … But you promised…” She broke off when he shook his head.
“There’s been a change of plan.”
She stared at him. A whirlpool of emotion swirled inside her. Apprehension bubbled up to the surface.
“My need for an heir has become pressing,” said Steyne. “Too pressing to allow us the luxury of even a week or a fortnight’s grace.”
“What?” The word came out as something of a shriek. She darted a look around, but there was no one but the songbirds in the trees to hear them.
“What do you mean, ‘pressing’?” she hissed. “If this is your way of rushing me into your bed, my lord, let me tell you that I won’t be bullied into this. We made a bargain, you and I.”
“Circumstances have altered since then.” It was a bald statement, not meant to be persuasive or to assuage her fears. “There is no time to lose. My mother is on her way to England.”
She frowned. “I don’t see—”
“No, you don’t see, do you?” he said. “You don’t understand any of this.” He contemplated the rustling trees above them. “And I hope to God you never have to.”
She was shaking her head and he gripped her upper arms, his eyes searching her face. “Do you think I want to go back on my word? But you must trust me when I tell you this is necessary. I need to make sure you are with child as soon as may be, Lizzie.”
She drew back. “But why? Why should your mother’s return make any difference to us?”
She had met Lady Steyne on only a handful of occasions, and her recollections were hazy. As a gawky teenager, Lizzie had been in awe of such an exquisite, elegant creature, absurdly pleased when Lady Steyne had chosen her as a bride for her son.
Surely Lady Steyne wouldn’t expose their deception, plunge her own son into scandal?
Lizzie still felt a deep, horrified pity for the woman who had suffered such cruel punishment at Lord Bute’s hands. From what Steyne had let fall, his mother had been sent away from her family to live in St. Petersburg. Exiled all the way to Russia.
For what? Lizzie wondered now.
“It is no use to try to explain it to you,” said Steyne, and she could sense his urgency wasn’t feigned, that the reason for such haste was real in his mind, at least. “You must trust me.”
Lizzie turned from him to pace, desperate to marshal her arguments against him.
He might believe he had good grounds to hasten their physical union. She wanted to evaluate those reasons for herself.
This was too sudden. He’d promised her time to grow accustomed to the idea of becoming his marchioness in fact as well as in name. What she’d really wanted, though, was time to make him see her as more than a healthy breeder for his heirs. Unless she could gain some small foothold on his affections, once he had what he wanted from her, there would be no hope. He’d abandon her, return to his old life. And she would be utterly, irrevocably committed.
Not just because of the babe that would grow inside her. She was terrified that if she let him make love to her again, she’d become his slave.
“Come now, ma’am,” Steyne said. “Surely we are playing at semantics. A mere matter of timing should not be such a sticking point.”
She thought of him touching her body so expertly, of him hard and ready and plunging inside her and nearly choked with dismay. “If you won’t even give me the reason, why should I comply with your wishes?”
“Because I am your husband,” he said coldly. “You don’t have a choice.”
“Eight years,” she shot back. Her pacing became a determined stride as she whipped up her anger, shored up her determination. “Eight long years you left me. And now you come back, demanding that I immediately fall into line and, oh, by the way, into your bed! It’s not as simple as that, my lord.”
She sensed his anger and frustration, but he wouldn’t let himself give vent to it, not the cold-as-ice marquis.
“So I’m being punished now for not coming to get you?” he said. “Who was it, I wonder, who begged me to go away and let her stay in her little backwater forever?”
Lizzie knew that she could not go back to Little Thurston. She must step into the role of Marchioness of Steyne; she accepted that. But she did not have to accept being treated as less than a person simply because the marquis had discovered a sudden, unexplained need to secure the succession.
“I agreed to come here,” she said. “I did not agree to let you into my bed. Not yet.” She tried to contain it, but her true objection came out: “You are so cold and unfeeling. You do not care for me at all. You do not even try to—to woo me, or…”
She trailed off. His expression was almost satanic; those flyaway brows deepened to a diabolical slant. “You want me on my knees, is that it?”
The hard, sarcastic tone stung her into snapping back, “That would be a start.”
But no, she didn’t want him on his knees. She just wanted him to see her, make love to her, that was all.
His nostrils flared and his lips turned white. For a moment, she thought he’d either shake her or throw her down into the sweet meadow grass and ravish her on the spot.
Lizzie’s heart pounded wildly as she braced herself for the assault. She ought to run, but she couldn’t force her feet to move.
He took one hasty step toward her, then stopped. His hands flexed as if he was restraining himself from reaching for her.
All at once, his face drained of expression and his eyes turned colder than a winter moon. The very air around him, which before seemed to crackle with thwarted will, now grew still.
“Make your excuses early tonight and wait for me in your bedchamber,” he said, his tone as cool and uninflected as his face was impassive. “We will speak further of it then.”
“You cannot come to my bedchamber. I won’t have it.”
When he made no answer, panic made her say, “You have no right!”
“I am your husband, ma’am,” he said, snatching up his whip and striding past her. “I have every right.”
Chapter Thirteen
Something balled in Xavier’s chest, clenched tight like a fist. It constricted his breathing, pressed against his rib cage.
He’d thought Lizzie a singular female, so self-contained and calm and free from the vanities and petty concerns of most women in his life. He’d thought she understood the imperatives that drove him. She’d seemed to comprehend her duty to her husband at age seventeen.
But Lizzie was just like all the others, craving dominion over him, seeking to manipulate him into doing and being what she wanted.
Cold and unfeeling, was he? The blood in his veins pumped hot and hard when he thought about bedding her. He intended to feel every bloody inch of her.
It had been too long for him. Thoughts of bedding Lizzie Allbright had become an obsession.
He was well aware that he needed to prove himself to her. That night he’d taken her virginity, he’d behaved like a boor. He hadn’t meant to, but his rage and pain had been so great, he couldn’t bring himself to do more than the bare essentials.
Oh, he hadn’t been rough with her, but he hadn’t been very loverlike, either. The whole business was so abhorrent, he’d refused to cloak it in pretty words and kisses. He supposed he couldn’t blame her if she wasn’t eager to go through that ordeal again.
But when he took her this time, he would show her more pleasure than she’d dreamed existed. The driving need to possess her in every possible way made failure out of the question.
So she wanted tender wooing, did she? His jaw hardened at the thought.
Xavier strode into the library but stopped short at a sight that was hardly likely to gratify him in the circumstances.
His cousin Cyprian, the man who now stood second in line to inherit Xavier’s estate and title, languished on a daybed at the far end of the room.
The boy fancied himself a poet; certainly, he dressed the part. His tumbling fair locks were cut in the pageboy style he seemed to think romantic but actually made
him look like a girl. Instead of a normal cravat, he wore a huge, silly paisley bow. The boy’s coat was made of bottle green velvet and his waistcoat was louder than a trumpet blast.
Cyprian lazed back on the green chaise longue with his fingertips pressed to his brow. Alone, the boy had probably been taking a nap but had snapped into his die-away attitude when he heard someone come into the room.
And this was the damned puppy who would step into Xavier’s shoes one day. After Cyprian’s wastrel father had drained the estate dry, that was.
Not if Xavier could help it.
“Hard at work, Cousin?”
“As you see.” Cyprian waved a lily-white hand toward a writing desk nearby. Stacks of paper covered in looping flamboyant script, ink, several quills, a scattering of sand, a penknife, and other detritus covered the surface. The floor beneath was littered with balls of crumpled paper.
Xavier would like to set the boy to digging a ditch or plowing a field, the way Montford had done to him when Xavier was a youth learning estate management. Then Cyprian would discover what hard work was.
But Cyprian’s competence or lack thereof would shortly become moot. He ought not to let the silly boy’s maunderings bother him so.
At the very least, he acquitted his vacant cousin of taking a hand in any kind of conspiracy against Xavier. Uncle Bernard would no sooner confide in Cyprian than fly to the moon.
“I’m writing a poem about thwarted love,” Cyprian announced. “I’m having the Devil of a time with it, if you must know, Coz.”
“My heart bleeds,” said Xavier.
The boy slapped his knee and sat up with sudden energy. “That’s just it. The heart. The organ of amour. The receptacle of tender emotions in a man’s breast. I have never been thwarted in love, so how am I to write about it?”
Xavier snorted. “Romantic love is a pretty concept dreamed up by people who need some noble justification for slaking their lust.”
Cyprian stared at him as if he’d just killed a puppy. The young man swallowed; then his attention strayed to his work.
The Wickedest Lord Alive Page 15
