by Jane Lark
“How frequently have you spoken to your wife since the night you caused that fracas?”
Drew did not answer.
“Have you taken her out once? No one has seen you together since then, yet she has been out.”
Drew took a breath, but he was not explaining to Peter how unlovable he felt himself.
Peter pushed off the chair with a growl, and straightened, then stood staring down at Drew. “You said she is unwell, could that not be due to your silence and your distance?”
It was no more than he had feared himself… But his conscience kicked too hard for him to admit it. “She has her family.”
“While enduring your iron will, and your will when it is against a person is not a pleasant thing, Drew. You more than most should know how painful silence and being disregarded are. As painful as violence, perhaps… I have watched it create and change who you are. Do you think me blind? You have hidden who you are within, but I know.”
Drew would have stood, but Peter leaned and gripped his shoulder to push him back. “Have no fear, I have no desire to fight with you again. I am not touching the subject you hate. But I wish you to know, that I know. I have seen the impact of such bitterness on you. Do not emulate what happened to you and destroy what you have with this girl… She is in love with you too. It screamed from her the night I came here. She was afraid for you. Making excuses for you, when I presume you had charged off in some rage…” Peter lifted an eyebrow.
Drew did not deny it. It was true.
Did she love him?
I hate you, when you’re like this. I suppose this is what you hoped for? You have pushed me away from the moment we wed. We will not let her suffer like this. Everything Peter said was endorsed by the words Mary and her aunt had thrown at him earlier.
“I know.” Drew replied simply, “I have become very aware of the mess I have made of things today. Mary made it clear – I was sitting here digesting it when you arrived.” Drew looked up at his friend. The person who had been his sole supporter for many years of his life.
Silence was equal to violence… had he been that dreadful a husband…
Peter emptied his glass, his adam’s apple shifting as he drank.
Drew drank down his brandy too. Its fiery heat burnt his throat in a satisfying penance. Peter reached for the decanter and filled his and Drew’s glass again.
He set the decanter down beside the broken chessboard and retook his seat. “Anyway, I have said my piece, but just beware, if you have treated her with distrust and pushed her away, I am not surprised the girl is thinking of deserting you.”
Drew smiled at his friend, his lips stiff, accepting the advice for what it was… “and yet you have never deserted me…”
They both laughed, because they both knew there had been numerous times when Drew’s anger and stubbornness had tested their friendship.
But then Drew’s mind turned to his sister. She knew the truth of rough handling.
“I’ve seen Caro too,” Peter said.
Obviously the link with Caro was clear to Peter too. There was desirable roughness that women enjoyed in a bed, and then there was cruel brutality. The second his sister had in droves.
“I’ve bought a house for her. I’m moving her in there next week. But say nothing, I cannot risk it getting out. At least some good has come of my marriage, Mary’s money has let me do it. Whether Mary stays or not I’ll have Caro settled.”
* * *
Male laughter rang from the sitting room as Mary opened her eyes and sat up. The bedchamber was dark but a line of light spilled in through a crack where the door had been left ajar.
The pain in her head had eased, but her limbs were shaky.
The laughter died.
“I’ve seen Caro too.”
Lord Brooke. Andrew must have reconciled with his friend at some point.
“I’ve bought a house for her. I’m moving her in there next week. But say nothing, I cannot risk it getting out…” It’s true. He has a mistress. “At least some good has come of my marriage, Mary’s money has let me do it. Whether Mary stays or not I’ll have Caro settled.” Nausea gripped at Mary’s empty stomach, but her heart was empty and sick too.
She lay back down and pulled the covers over her shoulder. She did not cry, the well of her sorrow was dry. She could not continue crying for him. She would leave. She could not stay. Tomorrow when he went out to ride she’d go, and then it would be over.
The men’s voices continued in more bland conversation on clubs and horses, and eventually the sound lulled her back to sleep.
* * *
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight; your wife will come about. You should simply let her see how you feel for her, and do not ignore her, and hold your temper and there you have it.”
Drew smiled. “Goodnight.”
“May Cupid be with you, my friend.” Peter turned away and walked along the hall. Drew shut the door. His hand stayed on the handle and his forehead pressed against the wood.
He thought of the day her father had found them in the inn. Of lying awake and watching Mary the night before her father had come. That had been how it ought to be, the two of them. Wholly and entirely together. Melded. She had been made for him, he was still the first few footprints in her snow…
He thought of Caro, lying in the snow as a child making snow angels and making him laugh.
Instead of fighting with Mary’s family, and trying to pull her away from her family, to keep her to himself, he and Mary should have been lying in the bloody crisp fresh snow of their life and making damned snow angels, completely claiming the ground.
But it was the wrong time of year for snow… Hay then, they ought to be in fields crushing the damned hay.
He smiled, a twisted smile. Solely for himself.
He would repair this. He would make it right. He would try harder. He would be what she needed, who she needed… if it damned well killed him.
She would have to show him how to be that man, but she was capable of that.
He let go of the door handle and turned to the bedroom. The first thing to do was share her bed again.
He sighed out his breath, then began unbuttoning his evening coat. He did not go into the room. He slipped it off and draped it over the back of a chair, then undressed until he only wore his shirt. He walked about the room quietly snuffing out the candles. The last one, he picked up and carried into their bedchamber. She was facing toward the door, on the side of the bed he had always slept until she had come into his life.
She had taken it over – his bed, his life. His body. His mind. His heart.
He’d made mistakes. He was going to correct them…
He would ensure she knew how he felt every day of her life from this day forward. He turned the sheet back, put the candle down on the chest beside the bed and then slipped beneath the covers beside her.
His heart ached. Terribly. It hurt as much as when Marlow had first broken his rib. No. It was even more aggressive than physical pain.
Her dark hair spilled across his pillows and the sheet, not plaited.
He turned and blew out the candle, wrapping them in darkness.
His fingers reached out and touched her hair, he let it run through his hand a couple of times, as he listened to her breathing. Then he moved closer to her, and rested a palm on her hip.
It had been far too long since he had loved her physically. He’d pretended he did not love her with his heart, because of the pain he was in now, and yet if she left him, he would be in even greater pain. He did not wish her to leave. In the morning he would show himself to her – naked in body and heart and soul, as she had shown him how to be, and he had rejected, because the idea scared him to death…It still did, but losing her scared him more.
He wished her to be happy; to be able to rely on him. He had been so insistent that she only rely on him before… but that had been about fear… possessiveness had torn him apart. Now things would be different.
She knew who he was, exactly who he was, she had seen all his faults. If she loved him, if he could win her back, then, there could be no weakness, he need not fear, just love. He would just love her.
He fell asleep thinking of hay fields, and snow, and Mary, and what they would do in them when they found a property for themselves.
Chapter 29
When Mary woke in the early light of dawn, it was as if she was dreaming. She had dreamt of this so many times.
Andrew lay flush against her back, and his hands were beneath her chemise, splayed across her stomach and kneading her breast as his erection rubbed against her bottom in shallow stokes.
She was aroused. He’d aroused her body while she’d slept. The short and shallow rhythm of her breaths filled the room, and her skin burned hot, she glowed under his spell. She had missed this so much. This had always worked between them, and like this she could believe he loved her.
Desire swelled in the place between her legs as she let it continue, half awake, and half in a blissful dream.
His hand slid down across her stomach.
A moan slipped from her throat. She’d longed to feel adored, to feel wanted and treasured again, and yet the moan was part bitter pain.
He does not love me.
His teeth nipped at her neck as he drew her bottom more firmly back against him. His erection pressing between her buttocks.
“I love you,” he whispered against her neck. “I’m sorry. I have been a fool. Let me show you, that I love you again. Let me prove that I can be the man you need. I want to be inside you again. I’ve missed you, sweetheart. Oh God, I’ve missed you.”
Lies, all lies.
Mary shut her eyes. She should tell him to stop, but she could not. The need inside her burned to know his love making just one last time before she left. She would never experience this again.
I love him even if he does not love me.
She could claim this moment from him – let him give and just take. What harm in that? The harm was already done.
She’d never love another man. This was her last chance to feel like this.
What harm in grasping one last memory, even if it was a lie, it would be precious to her.
His fingers slipped between her legs and into her. He must know she was aroused, she was soaking wet for him.
She let him roll her to her back and he stripped off his shirt then took off her chemise. The smell of last night’s brandy carried on his breath, and his own personal musky cologne hung in the air. Lust spiralled in her abdomen with a tight longing and her arms slid above her head as he kissed a path down between her breasts and across her stomach. She shut her eyes tight, she did not want to see his face, or his eyes, and know the lies they carried.
He took his pleasure caressing the place between her thighs with his tongue and teeth, and she came for him, the little death swirling over her, shattering into bright lights and spinning pieces. Her arms fell and her fingers gripped his soft hair.
She absorbed every sense and sound to preserve it to memory, for all the years she would be alone.
When he opened her legs with his, and slid into her, the moan that came from her throat was half sob.
He withdrew and pressed back in, coupling with her in an enchanting intimate dance.
“Open your eyes for me, Mary, darling.” His whisper brushed her cheek.
She swallowed back the urge to cry and did – looking at the dark amber and honey shades in his eyes – one last time.
She could not see lies there. She saw love, as he withdrew from her and gently slid back in, weaving an excruciating bliss into her blood.
“I love you,” he whispered, withdrawing and re-entering.
You do not!
“God Mary, I am such a fool. Can you forgive me? I will be a better a man, I swear it to you. No more games. We will work things out between us.”
Mary shut her eyes. She could not bear looking at the lies in his anymore.
Blissful sensations danced beneath her skin.
They made her forget his deceit and betrayal.
For this moment, suspended in time, she let him love her and believed – and expressed her love for him.
Her desire reached a fever pitch and she gripped his shoulders as release washed through her errant senses and her inner muscle clenched and gripped at his invasion.
Beneath her fingers his muscle locked hard and a deep long sound of relief ripped from his throat as his body trembled between her thighs.
His forehead fell to her shoulder for a moment, and his weight settled more heavily on her hips and her stomach.
She dropped from hot sunshine into a cold icy sea.
It was over. She would never know this again.
He withdrew and tumbled on to his back, pulling her with him, holding her close.
Her head fell on his chest, in the position she had once thought heaven.
“I know I’ve hurt you,” his voice rumbled in his chest, as his hand ran over her hair. “I’m sorry, Mary. It will not happen again. I cannot lose you, sweetheart. I promise I shall be different now.”
Ah, so that was the reason for these new lies. He fought to make her stay. A public separation and divorce would embarrass him.
She no longer cared. She’d go back to her parents’ estate to hide and lick her wounds and never come back to London.
But for now… she clung to him her fingers gripping at his bare chest, as his fingers stroked through her hair, and she pretended to her heart that he did love her back.
He whispered false promises of love, of finding a home for them and settling down somewhere quiet in the country.
She did not even think he noticed that she’d not said a word.
But when he rolled her to her back and leaned over her as though he would make love again, she knew the time had come to stop dreaming and face what was real.
“I’m hungry, Andrew. I need to eat.”
He smiled. His caring smile – not the roguish one. “I am being selfish, keeping you in bed. See, I have a lot to learn. But I shall learn, Mary. I’ll get your breakfast. Stay here.”
He got up, gloriously naked, his body so beautiful, and plumped the pillows making her sit upright, before setting them at her back. Then he disappeared and came back with a plate of buttered bread and sliced ham, as well as a cup of chocolate.
“Did you wish to ride with me today?” he asked, when he returned with a full plate for himself and sat at the end of the bed, one knee raised so he faced her.
She shook her head.
He looked so normal, so casual, as though he’d never told a lie in his life.
“No, thank you. You go. Milly will help me dress while you are gone.” And help me leave.
“Would you rather I stayed here?”
“No.” He had to go out, because she had to leave, if she did not she might begin believing his lies again.
He set down his plate, leant forward and brushed a finger down her cheek. “I will make you happy, sweetheart. I’ll dress and go riding. I will be back all the sooner then, and then you and I will call on your family and tell them all to go to hell with their good advice. We’re not separating.”
A sharp pain pierced her breast, but she did not speak.
When he left half-an-hour later she got up as soon as the door shut, dressing herself without stays, and when the maid arrived she sent her to bring a groom from the stables at Pembroke House to bring a cart to take her trunks. There was hardly anything to pack. Everything was still in the trunks and boxes anyway.
The maid carried down Mary’s writing desk and mirror and the four grooms who had arrived lifted her trunks out to the cart. In less than an half an hour the cart had been loaded.
She looked at Andrew’s rooms, and the bed, one last time, and the note she had left balanced between the chess pieces on the broken board. She had said very little beyond goodbye.
Chapter 30
Smiling at Timmy, Drew handed the boy an ice
d bun he’d bought at the bakers, instead of a coin, and the young street-sweep grinned his thanks.
The sun seemed brighter today, the sky bluer and the grass greener, and Drew was hopelessly in love with his wife.
Loving her this morning had been divine.
He was a new man, a man who would love her as she deserved.
As she loved him.
She did. Still. It had been in her eyes this morning when she’d opened them and looked at him, he’d seen her breaking heart.
But she’d forgiven him. They’d made heavenly love. They’d survived this rift.
He would apologise to her family. He needed them on his side, if he was to make this work, Mary loved them. He loved her. He could not separate her from them.
Perhaps I ought to do it publicly. He tipped his hat to Joshua who was speaking with another resident.
Perhaps he ought to call them to silence and stand up in the bloody lions’ den – Pembroke’s sitting room – and tell them all they were wrong, that he did love Mary and it had never just been because of her money.
That would give them something to talk about behind his back.
He laughed, as he ran upstairs, and swung around the banister onto the landing. His boot heels rung on the floorboards as he strode along the hall.
The world was a good place with Mary in it. Caro would be proud of him.
He turned the door handle but the door did not give.
His fingers on the door he pushed it, but it was locked.
A shiver ran up his spine.
No.
We made love this morning. She would not have…
He pulled the key from the pocket of his riding coat, and his hand trembling, he slotted it into the lock and turned it.
The door opened.
He forced himself to be calm.
She would not have left.
A dozen curses ran through his head. Her writing desk had gone.
Hell.
He turned to the bedchamber, one hand gripping the doorframe, everything of hers had gone, as if she’d never been here – but a dent still hollowed the pillow where she’d slept – where he’d made love to her scant hours ago.
