Desired

by Nicola Cornick

  The sincerity in his voice made Tess’s breath catch in her throat. In a society that thrived on artifice, Rothbury was a man of a very different stamp and his honesty challenged her to be equally sincere, challenged too the barriers she had erected about her guarded heart. For a moment her emotions felt terrifyingly naked.

  She fell silent as they turned into the gates of the park and the gravel of Rotten Row crunched under the carriage wheels. She was suddenly assailed by all the images of autumn. The trees were every shade of brown, the falling leaves swirling down to lie on the frozen grass in a bright carpet of orange and gold. Vivid pictures came into her mind of the watercolours she’d drawn as a child when, bored with her other lessons, she had wandered outside with her paint box and brushes. The hot summers had been full of long hazy days when she had lain in the grass, her tongue poking out with concentration as she had tried to capture in pictures the enquiring dark eye and feathered breast of a blackbird, or the flimsy beauty of a rose petal. She felt a sudden sharp pain in her chest. She had not thought of those days for a very long time and never with the warmth of memory, always with the need to escape. Yet now, as she looked at the branches of the beech and oak against the cold blue sky, she felt a pang of nostalgia.

  She realised that she had lost herself in memory. Rothbury was watching the play of emotions across her face and his gaze was disconcertingly intent.

  “You look sad,” he said. “I’m sorry. That was not my intention in bringing you here.”

  Something twisted in Tess’s heart. “I was thinking about my childhood,” she admitted, wondering as she did so how he seemed to be able to draw secrets from her that she would confess to no one else.

  “And that made you unhappy?” His voice was very quiet.

  Tess nodded. “Because it all ended so abruptly when my brother died, I suppose.” She had not spoken of Stephen’s death for years, yet now it seemed easy, natural, to do so. “You know that Garrick Farne shot him, that Stephen had been having an affair with Garrick’s wife?” Rothbury nodded. “I knew about it at the time although I never said a word to anyone. I felt terribly guilty afterwards.” Something of that guilt eased at last, now that she was finally telling someone of it. “But it made me realise how dangerous passion was, I suppose. Stephen died because of his affair with Kitty Farne.” Tess shivered. “All our lives were ruined by it. I swore I would never do anything so foolish as love blindly like that.”

  She looked up, blinking back the tears and with them the memories of the old scandals and hurts. Rothbury’s gaze was very steady on her face and she realised that his gloved hand was covering hers where it lay on the rug. Although there were two layers between them she felt a tingle of warmth and a very great deal of comfort. She did not want to move from beneath his touch.

  “I am not sure that it was like that,” he said, very gently. “Garrick told me that Stephen never loved Kitty at all.”

  “I know that now.” Tess sniffed. “Merryn told me everything after she and Garrick wed. But at the time…” She stopped.

  “At the time, you ran off and married your best friend so that you would always be safe from love, because it was too powerful an emotion,” Rothbury said.

  Tess’s heart dropped with shock. Her eyes opened very wide. “I cannot see how you could possibly know that,” she said. How could Rothbury see so much, see straight into her heart, when she had not even realised the truth herself until a second before?

  Rothbury smiled at her. “I know because you told me yourself, just now,” he said easily. “You said that Robert had been a wonderful friend. You omitted to say that you were in love with him.”

  “I loved him.” Tess knew she sounded defensive. She also knew her protestations had come too late. She had already given away far too much.

  “You did not love him with a passion.” There was something in Rothbury’s voice that made Tess burn. She turned her face away. This felt too intimate, as though she was giving away far more of herself than she had intended. She did not want to speak to Rothbury of love and passion. It felt far too dangerous and she did not understand why. She had believed that the threat he posed related purely to his ability to unmask her as Jupiter. She had not even considered that there might be other perils here, yet the powerful affinity between them made her feel extraordinarily vulnerable.

  “It’s beautiful here,” she said quickly.

  For a moment she thought Rothbury was not going to allow the subject to drop but then his face broke into a smile and her heart did a little errant skip. “I’m glad you think so,” he said, and Tess felt it again, that little shiver of pleasure that she took in his company. She seemed powerless to help it.

  “It is almost like being in the country,” Rothbury said, beside her. He had allowed the carriage to slow almost to a stop and his gloved hands held the reins idle in his lap.

  “Do you not care for London?” Tess asked.

  His shoulders moved beneath his coat as though he were trying to shrug off a weight. “London hems me in,” he said. He smiled down at her. “I’d rather be at sea.”

  “Do you still sail?” Tess enquired.

  “Only a rowing boat.” He sounded rueful. “I still have Sea Witch,” he added. “She is in dock at Greenwich. No money to pay for a crew though, and where would I go?” His shoulders lifted in a helpless little shrug. “I have responsibilities ashore now.”

  “Sea Witch,” Tess said. It was an evocative name. “Why did you call her that?”

  Rothbury laughed. “I used to claim it was because she handles like a woman in a temper,” he said, “but in truth it is because I am more than a little bewitched by her.” His voice fell. “I had thought to sell her though. She is the only asset I still possess.”

  “You can’t do that!” Tess said quickly, instinctively.

  He raised a quizzical brow. “Why not?”

  “Because we were speaking of passions just now,” Tess said. It was odd to feel envious of a ship and yet for a second envy was precisely the emotion she felt, a resentment that so much of Rothbury’s life had been wrapped up in sailing the world aboard Sea Witch, in adventures she could never know or even dream. “Sea Witch is your passion,” she said. “I can hear it in your voice.”

  “Can you indeed?” Rothbury sounded startled, then his tone warmed into amusement. “What a perceptive woman you are, Teresa Darent.”

  It was the first time that he had used her name. No one had called her Teresa since her childhood. The way Rothbury said it ruffled the edge of her nerves. Tess found that she liked it. She liked it a lot. Too much, probably, for it felt as though he was effortlessly stripping away more of the formality between them. Again it felt too intimate, threatening her defences.

  “Why do you call me Teresa?” she asked.

  There was a smile at the back of his eyes. “Because everyone else calls you Tess,” he said.

  “But not you.”

  “I’m different.”

  Tess’s stomach gave a little flip. She turned her face away. He was different. She was only now beginning to realise quite how much, and quite how dangerous it was to her.

  “At any rate,” she said lightly, “you have the promise of my money now. There is no need to sell your ship.”

  “Despite what I said earlier,” Rothbury said, “I do not like living off the expectation of my future wife’s fortune.” There was an edge to his voice.

  “You have too much pride,” Tess said.

  “How much pride is too much?” Rothbury said softly. He laughed suddenly. “If your money enables me to renovate Rothbury Chase, then I shall indeed overcome my pride and be grateful. It is a beautiful house, criminally neglected.”

  “Have you visited all your estates?” Tess asked.

  He nodded. “I’m told that legally I cannot sell any of them.”

  “Of course not!” Tess was appalled. “They are in trust for future generations—” She broke off abruptly, feeling grossly insensitive as she real
ised that for Rothbury there would be no begetting of another generation. The Rothbury title and the lands would have to move sideways to a cousin yet again. She wondered whom he had as his heir.

  Rothbury appeared not to have noticed her insensitivity. Tess was vastly relieved. “Do you enjoy the country?” he was asking.

  “I try never to go there,” Tess said. “I grew up in the country. That was enough for a lifetime.”

  Rothbury laughed with genuine amusement. “Is that true?” he enquired. “Or just another of your fashionable statements?”

  “It’s true enough,” Tess said. “The country bores me. All the hunting and shooting.”

  “But surely,” Rothbury said, “that is the height of fashion? And as a leader of society it is your duty to set an example by killing as many foxes as you can.”

  “You are teasing me,” Tess said. “Fox hunting is no pursuit for a lady unless she is some dyed-in-the-wool country squire’s wife. Which is fortunate, since I do not share society’s passion for maiming and killing furry and feathered creatures.”

  “Well, as to that I cannot see it is sport,” Rothbury agreed. His tone hardened. “There is sufficient killing without adding to it for fun.”

  Tess stole a glance at him. This was a man, she reminded herself, who had been a professional soldier and sailor, who had seen action in a number of campaigns and had been a prisoner of war. She wondered what marks his experiences had left on his mind as well as his body. No wonder he sounded bitter when speaking of the violence and cruelty of killing.

  “So you never visit Darent Park?” Rothbury asked.

  Tess shook her head. “The house is closed. Mr. Churchward administers the estate until Julius reaches his majority.”

  “But you see your stepchildren?” Rothbury persisted. “You visit them?”

  A very hard knot formed in Tess’s chest, stealing her breath. “No,” she said. It sounded stark, a mirror of the pain inside her. She tried to find the words, words that would explain her situation without giving away too much emotion.

  “Julius is at Eton,” she said carefully. “And Sybil is at school in Bath.”

  “But during their holidays—” Rothbury said.

  “They stay with their aunt,” Tess said in a rush, “my late husband’s eldest sister.”

  She could feel Rothbury looking at her but she did not turn her head to meet his gaze. The brightness of the day stung her eyes. There was a hot burn in her throat.

  “So you never see them?” Rothbury repeated. There was a very odd tone in his voice.

  “I told you yesterday,” Tess said, “that you ask too many questions.”

  “Forgive me—” he sounded impatient “—but I want an answer to this one. Your late husband entrusted the administration of his children’s affairs to you and to his lawyer and yet you never see them?”

  Tess thought about the harsh words that had been exchanged when Lady Nevern had discovered that her brother had not only cut her out of his will but had also left the sole running of the Darent estates to his widow and his lawyer. Legally, Lord and Lady Nevern had had no claim on the Darent twins, but Celia Nevern had known Tess’s weakness. She had asked in the sweetest possible tones whether Tess thought that her less-than-savoury reputation could possibly be an asset to the Darent twins in their future. Would it not be far more politic for her to leave the upbringing of her stepchildren to their blood relatives?

  “We agreed that it was for the best,” Tess said. She knew she sounded wooden. She felt as though she was shrinking inside, curling up in an effort to hide and protect herself from the pain she always felt when she thought of the loss of her stepchildren. It was like missing a step in the dark, a jolt, and her heart would stutter before she found her way forward again.

  “Best for whom?” Rothbury’s words cut like a knife, straight through her pitiful defences. Then, as she did not reply: “Best for whom? Look at me, Teresa.”

  It seemed inordinately difficult to do so because in looking Rothbury in the eye and telling him about her stepchildren, Tess found that she was accepting the truth for the first time. She had always skirted around it before with evasion and falsehood, claiming that Julius and Sybil were better off living with their aunt, uncle and cousins, pretending that she did not care. People assumed that she had packed the twins off to school and never saw them because it interfered with her social commitments. The reality was a great deal more painful.

  She felt Rothbury’s gloved hand smooth against her cheek, raising her chin so that she was forced to meet his eyes. His own cool green gaze was unflinching, demanding the truth.

  “Well?” he said softly, with an expressive lift of his brows.

  “Lord and Lady Nevern, Darent’s sister and brother-in-law, thought it best that they should have responsibility for the twins when they were not at school,” Tess said. “I agreed.”

  In the end she had been browbeaten into it by Nevern’s threats to bankrupt the estate by contesting the will in court. And there had been only one of her against a barrage of Darent’s siblings, all of them siding with Lord and Lady Nevern. Tess had often thought it a shame the marquis’s parents had been so fecund. It meant that there were so many more relatives who disapproved of her.

  Even so, her capitulation shamed her. She wished she had stuck out longer for the right to see Julius and Sybil sometimes. She had been so very fond of them and they of her. She missed them terribly.

  “Your stepchildren had grown accustomed to seeing you as a mother,” Rothbury said, and there was a barely concealed edge of anger beneath the silk of his tones now, “and your late husband trusted you to run the estate and care for them, yet his sister thought she knew better?”

  “We both knew that my poor reputation would reflect badly on my stepchildren,” Tess said, erasing all bitterness from her voice, “and so it has proved.”

  Rothbury’s fingers brushed the line of her jaw in something perilously close to a caress. Little shivers of sensation cascaded over Tess’s skin. He was still watching her and she saw anger in his eyes but knew it was not for her. She saw understanding there too and once again felt the tug of a dangerous affinity that threatened to undermine her completely.

  Rothbury’s hand fell. “So even then you were sacrificing yourself for the children’s sake,” he said, “and tacitly agreeing with their relatives’ judgement that you were a bad influence.” He tightened the reins. The horses checked.

  “Sometimes,” Tess said, “one needs to recognise the odds one is fighting against.” Her voice strengthened. “Besides, Lady Nevern is a most respectable matron with a spotless reputation. In a few years she will bring Sybil out, and since I shall be married and behaving like a pattern card of propriety there will be nothing to dim the future prospects of my stepdaughter.”

  There was a taut silence between them.

  “You are very generous,” Rothbury said gruffly. “More generous than your late husband’s odious relatives deserve.” His voice warmed a little. “A respectable matron with a spotless reputation, eh? She sounds like a ghastly judgemental harridan to me. One can only hope she will do something shocking before she chokes on her own virtue.”

  Tess gave a spontaneous burst of laughter. “Now, that I would like to see.”

  “I am always suspicious of those who profess the greatest morality,” Rothbury said. “Usually they are shockingly perverted.”

  “What a ridiculous generalisation!” Tess said, still laughing.

  “Isn’t it?” Rothbury agreed cordially. He set the carriage in motion again and as they moved off a barouche swished past in the opposite direction, the ladies inside raising their lorgnettes to peer at them.

  “Lady O’Hara,” Tess said, shuddering. “She is a frightful old gossip. I did not expect to see her out so early but maybe she cannot endure to lie late abed in case she misses the latest on dit.”

  She remembered that once, when Lady O’Hara had cut her dead at a musicale, she had drawn a coupl
e of extremely cruel but accurate caricatures of her and had affixed the pictures to the supper room doors. The expression of utter horror on Lady O’Hara’s face when the entire assembly had gathered around the anonymous portraits had been a sight to gladden Tess’s heart.

  But there would be no more of that sort of thing. No more little revenges for the slights she had suffered. She glanced sideways at Rothbury. There would be no more reforming politics either and no more Jupiter cartoons. If she was good, if she was lucky, she might just get away without being unmasked. But her life would be eminently the poorer for it. She would have no purpose. She would be a wife locked into another fashionable marriage of convenience. It was what she had thought she wanted and yet for a second Tess felt frighteningly empty and unsure what she was going to do with her future.

  The park was filling up. A gentleman cantered past on a roan gelding, then a pair of dashing young bucks who raised their hats to Tess as they passed and were almost unseated by their mounts as the horses started to prance and pirouette. The bucks disappeared in a welter of curses and flying hooves.

  “Restless stallions,” Tess said. “So difficult to control.”

  “I imagine you must have some trouble with them,” Rothbury agreed. There was a small frown between his eyes as he watched the two gentlemen out of sight.

  “Indeed,” Tess said. “Men are always trying to get into my…”

  Rothbury raised his brows.

  “Bank deposit box,” she finished. She smiled demurely. “And my bed as well.”

  “A stern husband should be a fine deterrent,” Rothbury said, with a twitch of the lips.

  “Very true,” Tess said. “I doubt any amorous libertine would risk getting on the wrong side of you, my lord, by making advances to your wife. Is it correct that you once snuffed the candles on an entire chandelier with a brace of pistols?”

  “No,” Rothbury said. “That would be a pointless waste of bullets.”

  “How prosaic you are,” Tess said. “And the story that you sailed into Cadiz under the cover of darkness and captured three Spanish ships?”