Desired

by Nicola Cornick

  A couple of overturned statues in the hallway showed Tess’s path to the library. Apollo, Owen saw, now had a chipped nose. Aphrodite’s arm had come off. No doubt Owen’s predecessor was spinning in his grave.

  Owen hammered on the library door. “Teresa, open the door!”

  The sound reverberated through the silent house, bouncing off all the statuary with their knowing eyes and shuttered faces. Owen did not really want to have to break down the door. In the first instance, it was made of old oak and was very fine. In the second, it was strong. He could not simply put his shoulder to it. His mind boggled at calling Houghton and asking for an axe in order to hack a path through to his wife.

  “May I be of assistance, my lord?” Houghton had materialised silently beside him.

  “I doubt it,” Owen said grimly. A thought occurred to him. “Actually, yes, Houghton, you can help. Pray go to the kitchens and fetch a tray of cold food for myself and Lady Rothbury.”

  He went back to the library door, which remained stubbornly shut. He knocked again.

  “Teresa,” he said, “open the door.” He paused. “I have food,” he added cunningly.

  He heard the key turn. The door opened a crack.

  “Where is it?” Tess said.

  Owen grinned. “Houghton is fetching it.”

  “Oh.” She started to close the door again.

  Owen inserted his foot into the gap. “Let me in,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  There was a moment when he thought Tess might just slam the door on his foot but she did not. She let go of the door and stood just inside it, staring at him. There was a fire lit in the grate and the room was hot. She had removed the cloak and was standing there in her paint-spattered golden dress. Her blue eyes were drenched in tears, rimmed in red. Owen was astounded to see that she could actually look ugly. Not that it would help matters to say so at this point.

  “Right,” he said. It came out more roughly than he had intended but he was tired and it was the end of a very long day. “What the hell was all that about? Why did you run away?”

  She was upset. He could see that. But she was angry as well. And somehow, even though he had been married for only a day, Owen knew it was going to be his fault. She stared at him, accusation in her eyes. Then she stared down at his pantaloons as though trying to work out exactly what was concealed in them.

  “You were supposed to be impotent,” she said.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT WAS TURNING INTO ONE HELL of a wedding night.

  Owen rocked back on his heels. His first thought was that he had misheard.

  “I beg your pardon?” he said.

  “I expected you to be impotent,” Tess repeated. “I wanted you to be impotent. And then, when you kissed me, I felt—” She broke off, glaring at his pantaloons again.

  Owen gestured her to sit down and took the place beside her on the sofa. Tess immediately moved farther away from him and curled up in a corner, her feet tucked under her, arms wrapped about herself.

  “I am sorry that I cannot oblige you,” Owen said. “But what on earth gave you the idea that I was impotent?”

  Tess looked confused. “It was understood.”

  “By whom?” Now he was the one who was confused. Had the entire ton been discussing his supposed incapability?

  “You had been injured fighting the French,” Tess said. “It was common knowledge that you…” She paused. “That you had sustained a debilitating wound.” Her eyes touched his face then she looked away. “Mrs. Tong told me so that night at the brothel. She said that you…that the Captain of the Dragoons had no lead in his pencil.” She looked up and there was indignation in her eyes. “You were in charge of the troops that night!”

  “No, I was not,” Owen said. “I was merely there in my capacity as one of Sidmouth’s special investigators.”

  Tess stared at him for a moment and then her face crumpled as she realised the extent of her misunderstanding.

  “But Alex and Joanna…” Her breath caught on a gasp. “They said it was true!”

  “Grant told you I was impotent?” Hell. Owen thought he probably owed Alex something for trying to elope with his wife all those years before, but he thought they had got past that. This was a devil of a way for his friend to take revenge. “What did they say?” he asked.

  Tess ran a hand through her disordered curls. She looked ruffled and cross and bewildered. Owen found he wanted to touch her, pull her into his arms and comfort her. He wanted to offer her comfort because he was not impotent and she had wanted him to be. Dear God, what a coil they were in.

  “Well…” Her voice had softened into hesitation. “When I say that they told me, that is not quite true. But when I announced that I was to marry you, neither of them warned me.”

  “Warned you that I might want to sleep with you?” Owen raised his brows. “It is the done thing in many marriages.”

  “Not in my marriages.” Tess looked harried. “You never tried to kiss me,” she said. “You never tried to take advantage.”

  So this was what he got for behaving like a gentleman, Owen thought. There really was no justice. “I’m old-fashioned,” he said.

  “Everyone tries to seduce me.” Tess looked confused again. “Are you sure you really are—”

  “Yes,” Owen said. “I am sure. Why did you not ask me directly?” He added, “If you needed to be certain?”

  Now Tess looked even more cross. “I would not be so indelicate,” she snapped. Colour the shade of deep rose stung her cheeks.

  She was shy.

  It was another shock. Owen knew that Tess was nowhere near as brazen as she pretended, but the extent of her naivety and her reticence surprised him. No one would believe it and yet the defiance in her eyes and the blush that was spreading down her neck told the truth of it. She had been too shy to tackle such a personal subject directly with him and so she had relied upon gossip and hearsay. And as a result… As a result she was married to a man who was not only very far from incapable of consummating their marriage but had a positive desire to do so.

  Which brought him neatly to the most important question of all.

  “Why did you want an impotent husband?” he asked.

  Instantly her shoulders tensed and her body became even more hunched and rigid. Her lavender-blue gaze slid away from his and fixed on the velvet cushions.

  “I told you that when I proposed,” she said. “All I required from you was the protection of your name. A marriage in name only,” she repeated dully. “That was what I wanted.”

  Owen spared a moment to reflect on the irony of it all. When Tess had first come to him she had said she needed protection for herself and her stepchildren. He had suspected her of deceiving him by seeking protection from Lord Sidmouth’s investigations too. In the process of untangling both of those issues he had completely forgotten her original demand for a marriage of convenience. Now he could see it was the most important element of the entire arrangement and it was far, far too late to put it right.

  “That is not an answer,” Owen said. “The question was why—why you want a husband who does not desire you.”

  She was not looking at him, but even so he saw something flicker in her eyes before her expression shut down altogether.

  “That is none of your concern.” She sounded cool and haughty, the Teresa Darent the world saw, the woman who gave nothing away and whose composure was as impermeable as steel. Except that she was fidgeting with the threads of the cushion until they were twisted and ragged between her fingers.

  Owen shook his head. “You mistake,” he said. “I am your husband and what I expect from our marriage is that you share my bed and provide me with an heir. Those are my requirements and as they in no way match yours I think that is a matter of considerable concern.”

  He had to credit her with perfecting the art of silence. She did not say a word. He knew no women and very few men who had the nerve to let the silence run and refuse to break it.
He had thought that over the past ten days he had learned all her secrets. But then he remembered the moment in the carriage on the way back from Hampstead Wells. He had asked her if there was anything else he should know and she had denied it. But here it was, something so vivid and painful and deep that he sensed she was fighting it with all her strength. But he had to know.

  “Well?” he said.

  There was a knock at the door. “The food, my lord,” Houghton said, peering into the library as though he half expected to be stepping into a pitched battle. He came forwards reluctantly and placed the tray on the table between them. “There is pigeon pie and beetroot salad and ham and cheese.”

  Owen looked at him and he fell silent. “Thank you, Houghton,” Owen said. He had lost his appetite and it seemed Tess had too. She was looking at the beetroot with barely concealed loathing.

  “Well,” he said softly, shifting his attention back to Tess as Houghton exited the library with indecent haste.

  “Perhaps we should have spoken of this before.” Her steely composure was still in place. “Now it is too late. Unless…” She paused. “Can I persuade you to see my point of view? A marriage in name only has certain benefits.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “You could keep a mistress with my blessing.”

  Owen drew a short breath. Well, hell. It was his wedding night and his wife was suggesting he take a mistress. Some men would be gratified to have married such an understanding woman. He was not one of them.

  “Such a tempting offer,” he said, his voice loaded with sarcasm. He saw Tess wince. “You are all generosity, madam. But,” he said, and shrugged, “I am afraid I wish to sleep with my wife, not with a mistress. Unfashionable of me, I know, but there we are. Besides, a mistress cannot give me an heir to Rothbury, can she?”

  Tess rubbed her forehead. “There I cannot help you, my lord. I fear you will have to divorce me and remarry in order to gain the heir you clearly desire. Or—” her gaze slid over him and lingered on his pantaloons “—perhaps an annulment would be more appropriate, given the circumstances.”

  “I am sure that would enhance my fictitious reputation greatly,” Owen said. “No, thank you. I am not encouraging further debate about my supposed impotence.” He shook his head. “You move very fast, madam. From marriage to divorce without stopping for a wedding night in between.”

  Tess shrugged. Every muscle was tight with tension now. It seeped from her skin; for all her assumed nonchalance she could not disguise it. Owen knew she wanted him to stop questioning her. She wanted him to leave her alone. But he was not giving up until he learned the truth.

  He could feel his temper rising. Could she not see that they had had an opportunity to build something that could become tender and precious if only she gave it a chance? Was she truly as shallow as she had always pretended? The Teresa Darent he had started to know was a very different woman, generous and loyal with the capacity to love deeply. The thought of her denying that, denying him, made his heart ache. Yet she sat there with so unyielding an expression on her face he did not know how to penetrate that facade and he was not sure he even wanted to try anymore.

  “There will be no divorce,” he repeated. He stood up to leave.

  She put out a hand to stop him, caught his sleeve in urgent fingers. “But we will be married in name only,” she said. “You would not force me to consummate—” She came to an abrupt stop.

  Owen’s temper shattered. “Dear God,” he said cuttingly, “what sort of a man do you think I am?”

  He felt Tess shudder. Her face went completely blank as though in that moment she had utterly absented herself, not only from him but also from the power of her own thoughts. There was the oddest silence Owen had ever experienced, then something snapped in his mind, and the words, the memories, the images reformed, and he felt the shock hit him for a third time that evening, with jarring force. He looked again at Tess’s pale, frozen expression. Whatever it was she was blotting out of her mind had nothing to do with him. It was some other man she was thinking of, some other situation that was intolerable to her.

  “You’re afraid,” he said very slowly, and saw the confirmation of his suspicions in the terror that leapt in her eyes.

  “No!” Her denial was instantaneous, forbidding him to trespass. She curled up even more closely like a tightly closed flower.

  “Yes, you are,” Owen said. “You are terrified of intimacy.” At the back of his mind he could hear the echo of her words, like a ghost:

  Darent was laudanum and drink, and Brokeby was lechery and drink. And gambling. And laudanum…

  She had given him all the clues, Owen thought, whether she realised it or not. She had wanted a marriage in name only; she had turned to ice in his arms when he had first kissed her and she had been too shy to broach directly with him the issue of his supposed impotence. She had said that Robert Barstow had been her best friend and that Darent had entrusted her with his children’s futures.

  She had never spoken about Brokeby.

  Others had. Even his aunt Martindale had said Brokeby was no gentleman, but Owen, like everyone else, had read the situation the wrong way round and imagined that Tess had been a willing participant in Brokeby’s wild and licentious ways. There were the paintings to prove it. Those pictures that Tess had destroyed that very afternoon.

  “I tried to pretend it had never happened….”

  He remembered the stories he had heard of Tess’s gambling and drinking and wild ways in the wake of Brokeby’s death. Not indulgence, but a desperate attempt to forget…?.

  A feeling of sick horror slid between Owen’s ribs like the blade of a knife.

  “Brokeby,” he said slowly. His voice was heavy and harsh. “What did he do to you?”

  Tess made a broken little sound of distress. Owen took her hands in his. They were frozen, trembling. He thought that she might resist and draw away from him but she did not.

  “He can’t hurt you anymore,” Owen said. “You’re safe now.”

  Tess shook her head. “It’s too late,” she said. “It’s too late. It’s inside my head.” Her face crumpled and Owen thought she was going to cry again, but she took a deep breath and steadied herself, and then she began to talk quickly, urgently, the words tumbling out in an unstoppable tide that once started could not be quelled.

  “I didn’t know about the paintings,” she said painfully. “There was a house party. Brokeby and I were newly wed and he had taken me to the country along with a group of his cronies and some of their mistresses. It was all very disreputable and I thought it strange when we were on our wedding trip, but I was young and naive and a little lonely, and so I said nothing…?.” A frown puckered her forehead. “Anyway, Brokeby must have given me something, in my food, my wine, I am not certain. But I remember feeling very unwell and then everything became very confused.”

  Owen felt a shiver ripple through her. “I knew I was not asleep,” she said, “and yet I dreamed—” She stopped. Her voice was thin. “Horrible nightmares, waking nightmares. I could not tell the dream from the reality. I remember I was dressed only in my shift and sometimes…sometimes I was wearing nothing at all. I remember the cold on my body, and sometimes the heat of a fire, and there were shadows about me, hands on me, people touching me, displaying me.” The despair shuddered in her voice. “It was grotesque, almost impersonal, as though I were some sort of exhibit. I realise now that Melton was sketching me in different poses, but at the time I did not understand…?.” Her voice caught. Owen saw her swallow very hard. “I wanted to break away, to escape. I tried, tried to run, but I could barely stumble as far as the door. I saw a crack of light and reached for it, but someone laughed and closed the door in my face…?.” She turned away from him. “After that I had no strength to fight. It was too difficult, so in the end I gave in to it. I let it claim me, let them do what they willed. I never wanted to wake again.”

  Owen tightened his grip on her hands. He focussed solely on her. The
emotions inside him, the dark, turbulent anger, the violent rush of protectiveness, the primitive need for revenge, those feelings could wait. Tess was all that mattered now.

  “Eventually I did wake, even though I did not wish it.” She was speaking very quietly now, her gaze on their clasped hands. “I found I was alone, in my bed.” Her gaze was blind, inward looking. “Brokeby came to me then,” she said. “He had not bedded me before.” She stopped. “I was a virgin when I wed him and I think that in some twisted way he saw me as his trophy. He was excited and he had come to claim me. At the least,” she said drily, “it was over quickly and after that I was not so innocent and I learned to deal with it.”

  “What of the others?” Owen said. His voice was so rough he barely recognised it. He did not want to know the answer to his question but he knew he would have to bear it. If he was to help Tess he needed to know the whole truth, no matter how painful. But she was shaking her head. She did not pretend to misunderstand him.

  “Brokeby was a jealous man,” she said, “so although he wanted his cronies to see what he possessed and to envy him for it, he was not prepared to share me. Not then. Maybe when he had tired of me.” She smiled but there was no amusement in her eyes. “Lucky for me he died before that happened.”

  “How long?” Owen said. He was so angry he was not sure he could even get the words out. “How long before he died?”

  “Two months,” Tess said, “but mercifully he was up in town for one of those.”

  Dear God. She had spent a whole month with a whore-mongering, libidinous bastard like Brokeby. Owen felt his throat close with despair for her.

  “I ran away whilst Brokeby was in London,” Tess said. “I went back to my uncle and aunt’s house, but my uncle was a most God-fearing vicar and he said I was breaking my wedding vows. He took me back to Brokeby in person to make sure I could not run again. I should have gone to Joanna,” she said bitterly, “but she had difficulties of her own. She and I had a talent for choosing the wrong husbands.”