by Louise Allen
He tossed his shirt on the bed as Hal came and turned him by the shoulders into the light. ‘So this is the famous gunshot wound from the footpad?’ He lifted the edge of the dressing and drew a sharp breath. ‘Nasty. But small calibre. One might almost say a lady’s pistol.’
‘One might, if one did not care about the consequences to the lady.’
‘Ah.’ Hal nodded appreciatively. ‘What was she aiming at? Your head? Or your manhood?’
‘Nothing at all, apparently. According to this hypothetical lady, she had no idea it was loaded.’
Hal adjusted the dressing again. ‘Made a tidy mess of your shoulder. Hurt like hell, I should imagine.’
‘It stung a trifle,’ Marcus admitted with what he felt was commendable understatement. ‘I was bleeding like a stuck pig. Miss Latham was remarkably effective in dealing with that.’
‘Perhaps I can help her improve her aim,’ Hal remarked as Marcus washed. ‘It would be amusing to take her down to the Long Barn, assist her with getting a grip on a pistol.’
Marcus grabbed the soap so hard it shot from his hand into the basin. For a moment, the room vanished behind a red haze.
‘Miss Latham is…fragile as far as men are concerned,’ he said when he could master his voice. ‘She has had much to fear from them and a very recent encounter with one who was not—’ he searched for the word ‘—wise.’
Whether his brother guessed he was in the same room as the unwise man in question, he neither knew nor particularly cared. Hal could rag him all he liked, provided he left Nell’s feelings unruffled and her heart intact.
Dinner passed uneventfully, with everyone focused on Hal. Nell retired into her shell, while the family bombarded Hal with questions and nagged him into eating more. With his own worries over his brother’s health at rest, Marcus was left to watch Nell covertly and to wonder just why he was feeling so strangely unsettled. After all, he had a plan for dealing with her.
Lady Narborough refused to allow her menfolk to linger over their port, insisting that they had plenty of time to swap bloodcurdling tales of the battlefield later. So Hal was ensconced in the place of honour by the fire and fussed over, while Nell went quietly back to ponder the chess game she and his father were playing very slowly over several evenings. The earl, who seemed to enjoy teaching her, did not press her for a move, but sat back in his chair watching his younger son with an occasional smiling glance at Nell.
Marcus got up and sat beside her. ‘That pawn?’ he suggested, pointing. He had no idea whether it was a good move or not; his attention had been entirely on her face, not the board.
‘Really?’ She looked up at him, puzzled. It was obviously a foolish suggestion. ‘But I am playing the red pieces.’
A very foolish suggestion. ‘Of course, I was not thinking. You are not chilled after our drive this morning?’
‘And my walk?’ Nell met his eye with tolerable composure. ‘Yes, I deserve to catch a cold with such foolishness, do I not?’
‘It was my fault entirely,’ he said. ‘I am sorry.’
‘You did not force me to get down from the carriage,’ she pointed out, her voice low. ‘What followed was just as much my responsibility.’
‘I was tactless,’ Marcus persisted, determined to apologise comprehensively while he was at it. ‘Afterwards.’
‘True.’ Nell turned back to her contemplation of the board. ‘And I was provoking.’ She sent him a slanting glance from under her lashes, an utterly feminine trick to gauge his mood. Marcus felt his lips twitch, just a fraction.
‘Very true,’ he agreed, and she smiled, a small, secret smile that did the strangest things to his breathing. What the devil was the matter with him?
Her fingers poised over the chessboard, she hesitated, then moved a bishop. Across the table, Lord Narborough chuckled.
‘Oh dear, have I walked right into a trap?’
‘Most certainly. You see, I will now do this.’ The earl leaned forward. ‘And what will you do now?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ Nell said, half laughing, half plaintive.
‘Let me see.’ Hal strolled over and studied the board, then leaned down and whispered in Nell’s ear.
She went pink, laughed, bit her lip and sent Hal a roguish look that had Marcus’s blood seething. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant Carlow,’ she said demurely, leaning forward and making a move that had Lord Narborough sitting up and frowning.
‘Miss Latham will learn faster if you do not tell her what to do,’ Marcus observed as Hal took up position leaning on the back of Nell’s chair.
‘But it is such fun to teach, don’t you think so?’ His brother’s expression was bland and innocent, his suggestive words went straight to the most tender part of Marcus’s conscience.
Teach Nell. Oh yes, that is what I want to do. Teach her to make love, teach her to love me. Love. His heart gave a sudden thump. Marcus stared at his own clasped hands, keeping his eyes down in case Hal read the truth in them.
He had fallen in love with Nell Latham. That was why he was so defensive, so possessive when Hal was close to her. That was why he could not make love to her like that, why the thought of her with any other man filled him with hot anger. That was why, whatever her secrets, he wanted her. Wanted to marry her.
Marcus got up abruptly, walked away across the room to the window and jerked back the curtain. His own face stared back, reflected in the glass. Wanted her for ever, as his wife. God. What was happening to him? He stared blindly at the dark world outside. It was like discovering something totally new about himself. He supposed it was something new, this feeling. It was certainly overwhelming.
He watched the scene behind him reflected as though in a mirror. His father frowning at the problem Hal’s move had set him. Hal using his hands to describe something to his sisters that was making them laugh. His mother’s smile. And Nell, quiet, contained, full of unexpected depths and passion. Nell, who had turned to liquid fire under his hands in that cold folly, whose skin smelled of roses and whose mouth tasted of cherries.
What did it matter that she had fallen on hard times, that she was having to earn her own living, that she had no family around her? He was Viscount Stanegate, heir to an earldom. He could do what he wanted. Just for once, he could do absolutely what he wanted. There would be gossip; he would have to deal with that, as much for her sake as for the family.
She must be from a gentry family, at the very least, he supposed. He would have his people look into it. There would be some respectable relative, however distant, who would be glad to oblige the Carlows by lending her countenance.
Now all he had to do was to find the right moment, the right words. The seriousness of what he was contemplating was beginning to sink in. He was in love, and his world was no longer on its right axis, and perhaps never would be again. He was no longer in control of his emotions or his destiny.
That slim figure across the room was going to change everything. Everything he believed about himself, he realized, would be challenged and transformed. And yet, he had never felt more right in himself, more certain of who he was and what was important.
Marcus looked around the candlelit room that held everyone who mattered to him, a room set in the heart of the house and the estate that was rooted in his very being. If he had not stopped, up there in the folly tower, Nell could now be carrying the next generation to love this place, beneath her heart.
How long had he felt like this about her and not realized? How was he going to keep her safe?
Chapter Fifteen
‘Checkmate.’ Lord Narborough sat back and Nell laughed.
‘Oh dear, I fear I am never going to get the hang of this game, even with Mr Carlow’s assistance. Congratulations, my lord.’
‘He’s never beaten me yet,’ the earl said smugly. ‘So you learn from me, Miss Latham, not Hal.’
Still chuckling at Hal’s snort of affronted pride, Nell glanced round for Marcus. He was watching her, unsmiling, almost
grim. That frown was back and his eyes were darker than she had ever seen them. Darker than when he had accused her of trying to frighten his father to death. Darker even than they had been as he had lain over her, their breath mingling in the cold air, and he rejected her.
The bitter argument was still unresolved. He still desired her, still wished to make her his mistress, even though he knew he should not. And she, wanton that she was, still wanted him. If he had offered a carte blanche again, then she would have accepted it, Nell admitted to herself. It was the only way to have a part of him for her own, his body if not his heart.
But that hard, hot stare seemed to brand her as she sat there. What had she done so very wrong that he should look at her like that? Laughed and found pleasure in his father’s company? Flirted a very little with his charming brother?
Dog in the manger, Nell thought. You do not want me, but no one else can even be my friend.
‘Nell, will you come and talk about the party Hal wants us to hold?’ Verity called.
‘I—I am a little tired, Verity. Would you mind very much if we spoke of it tomorrow?’ Verity’s face fell and Nell had a strong suspicion that she would do what she often did and come round in her nightgown and wrapper to curl up at the foot of the bed for what she called a chat, but was usually a lengthy interrogation about the life of a milliner, which appeared to fascinate her.
Nell gathered up her things, made her goodnights and finally turned to face Marcus. He was still standing by the window, still watching her with what she could only interpret as dislike.
Two could play at that game. Nell lifted her chin and returned a stare of freezing disdain as she swept out of the door. Outside, she leaned back against it, shaken. He had seemed so gentle, almost teasing her over the chess game—until Hal had come over to join them. Perhaps he did not want her corrupting his brother.
‘Miss Latham?’
‘Oh. Watson. A moment’s abstraction.’ She smiled at the butler and went swiftly up the stairs. With Miriam dismissed, she turned the key in the lock; she really did not feel she could cope with Verity tonight.
Nell folded away the last of her father’s letters and tied the ribbon. There was nothing more there to add to what she already knew, nothing in her mother’s diary either, just despair and the death of hope.
She locked the writing slope and set it back on the table. The clock on the mantle showed five minutes to midnight. Time to sleep, if she could.
The tap on the door stopped her as she began to climb into bed. ‘Verity, I’m sorry, but I am too sleepy to talk,’ she called.
The tap came again, the handle turned. Nell sighed and went to the door. ‘Verity—’
‘It is Marcus. I need to talk to you.’
‘At this hour? In my room? I very much doubt talking is what you have in mind,’ she said, snatching her hand back from the door handle. ‘Go away.’
‘Nell, for Heaven’s sake, stop sulking and let me in.’
‘Sulking! I am doing nothing of the sort.’ Nell heard her voice rise and got a grip on her temper. ‘You are a complete hypocrite, Marcus Carlow, glowering at me for talking to your brother then accusing me of sulking,’ she hissed at the crack in the door. ‘I don’t like you, I don’t want you—’
There was a loud thump on the door panels that sent her jumping back in alarm. ‘Nell!’
‘Will you stop shouting! Do you want the entire household here? Do you want to shame me in front of your sisters? Go away!’
Silence. Then, ‘You really are the most infuriating woman I have ever met,’ Marcus Carlow said. It must have been the muffling effect of the door, but she could have sworn he was smiling as he spoke. ‘Good night, Nell.’
‘Infuriating? Me?’ But there was only silence. Nell turned the key in the lock and flung open the door, spoiling for a fight. The passage was empty save for half a suit of armour on a pillar. ‘Oh!’ The temptation to slam the door was almost overwhelming. Nell closed it with care, locked it and stalked back to bed.
What do you do, she wondered an hour later as she punched her pillow in an effort to find a position where she might finally sleep, when you fall in love with a man whom you want to shake in exasperation almost as much as you want to kiss him?
‘The lake is frozen, so Potter tells me,’ Marcus remarked as he tackled a large and bloody beefsteak.
Nell averted her eyes from both the man and his idea of a reasonable breakfast and addressed herself to her toast and preserves. She was finding it very difficult to ignore Marcus while at the same time not give the appearance of doing so.
‘We could skate,’ he continued. ‘Potter says the ice is bearing—he and two of the other under-gamekeepers were on it last night.’
‘Oh, yes!’ Honoria was predictably enthusiastic. ‘We can all go and take a picnic and have a brazier, just like we used to do.’
‘I didn’t know there was a lake,’ Nell remarked.
‘It is more of a long, large pond,’ Lord Narborough explained. ‘It was made by damming the river to create a head of water for the mill lower down. Most of the streams around here are shallow, but they feed the Woodbourne and it has a reasonable depth.’
‘We crossed one of the tributary streams when Nell and I were riding,’ Marcus said.
She saw Hal looked up at the use of her first name. ‘So we did, my lord,’ she said with a little emphasis on the title. Hal’s lips twitched.
Unaware of the byplay, Lord Narborough tossed down his napkin and beamed. ‘A good idea. The sun is out, the frost is hard. Watson, tell the kitchen that we require a luncheon hamper and have the footmen take the brazier and so forth down to the lake.’
‘George,’ Lady Narborough began, then looked round the table at her enthusiastic family and smiled. ‘Oh, very well. The exercise will do us all good, I daresay. You have some stout boots, Miss Latham?’
‘I will just watch,’ Nell demurred. ‘I have never skated.’
‘You will love it. Please try, Nell,’ Verity cajoled, despite Nell’s firm refusals.
She was still saying no when they reached the lake-side an hour later. This was obviously a well-rehearsed excursion, with muffled-up footmen in galoshes throwing oilskin rugs over fallen trees for seats, a brazier and kitchen staff clustered around it making ready for hot drinks and luncheon. The staff seemed to be enjoying it as much as the family and it was hard, in the middle of so much laughter, to keep refusing to join in.
Nell stood by the edge, well wrapped up, watching while Lord Narborough executed intricate reverse steps with his wife, Hal whirled a shrieking Honoria in circles and Marcus fastened Verity’s skates.
Diana strapped on her own skates with a practised air just as Lord Narborough delivered his breathless wife back to the edge. ‘Miss Price?’
They stuck out for the centre, collecting Verity as they went. Nell tried not to feel envious. It looked such fun, so effortless. Marcus came up, as sure on his skates as he was on firm land. ‘Nell?’ She fought the urge to turn away and take refuge by the brazier.
‘I do not skate, my lord,’ she said politely, conscious of Lady Narborough not so very far away.
‘Nell, I want to make up.’ Marcus was smiling ruefully at her when she finally made herself meet his eyes.
‘Really?’ She began to walk along the edge while he skated slowly beside her. ‘After glowering at me last night and then hammering on my door for an argument? Do you assume I am going to corrupt your brother?’
‘Hal? Good God, no! Quite the reverse, I am sure. Hal is the most appalling flirt; I would not want your heart wounded, Nell.’
Would you not? she thought, wondering what he would say if she told him that she feared he had already broken it. ‘And that makes you scowl?’
‘Was I so fierce? I am sorry, Nell. My thoughts last night were not easy. I had some hard thinking to do.’
‘You seem more cheerful this morning,’ she ventured. ‘Have you made up your mind what you will do about your problems?
’
‘One of them, yes.’ He came to a halt on the ice. ‘I am looking for the right moment to do something about that. How to tackle our dark antagonist is still eluding me.’
‘These woods are too big to hunt him in,’ she said, looking up at the forested slopes. ‘Could you set a trap? Take away the patrolling gamekeepers, be a little careless with a window left ajar?’
‘If it were only Hal, my father and I, that is exactly what we would do. With a houseful of women, no. But I refuse to allow him to spoil our fun. Come and put skates on, Nell. I will teach you.’
‘I’ll fall down,’ she protested, allowing herself to be led back.
‘Where’s your spirit?’ Marcus demanded, grinning at her. ‘You ride a horse; this is much closer to the ground, even if you do fall.’
‘Even? Oh, all right,’ Nell capitulated. It seemed she had misjudged his mood last night and the dark, brooding gaze was not the outer sign of his feelings about her.
She sat on a tree stump and let him strap the skates over her boots, one hand steadying her foot while the other secured the lashings. Through the sturdy boots his touch could be nothing but chaste, yet there was still the memory of those same fingers trailing wicked delight up her legs, up her inner thighs, up to the most…
‘Did you say something?’ Marcus looked up and Nell shook her head. She must have gasped. His dark head bent to the task again and she fought the impulse to thread her own fingers into the thick, waving hair.
‘You should wear a hat,’ she scolded. ‘You’ll catch your death of cold.’
His answering grin as he helped her to her feet gave her a sudden glimpse of what he must have looked like as a boy, his bare head ruffled, his eyes sparkling with mischief. If they had lain together yesterday, then she might be carrying his child now. A son with his father’s grey eyes.
