Dilemma in Yellow Silk

by Lynne Connolly

  He pulled her down and gave her an open-mouthed, luscious kiss. He thrust his tongue into her, imitating their play below, supporting her when she collapsed against him.

  They kissed until the pleasure ebbed, leaving contentment in its wake.

  “So that was it,” she said, when they finally broke apart.

  “Some of it,” he replied shakily. “We have a long way to go, though. Many avenues to explore together. You were wonderful, sweetheart. That was perfect.”

  As a learning experience, she could not disagree.

  Chapter 14

  They practiced a great deal over the next week. With the news of her father spreading, Viola took to wearing a black armband and subdued colors. She felt right doing that, although black would not be appropriate for a new bride. When she thought of her father’s fate, such happiness seemed wrong, but Marcus listened to her, held her, and let her weep when she needed to. Then he made love to her.

  He brought her a deep joy she had not known possible.

  “You should go out a little,” his mother said after he first week when they were sitting at dinner. “Not to dance, of course, but the theater, the opera, and dinner with friends is entirely allowable. Did you not say you wanted to see more of the city?”

  “No,” Marcus said firmly. “Viola is in danger, and we are no nearer discovering who did it than we were before.”

  “I should be safe in company,” she responded. “You said so yourself.”

  He had. Nobody would shoot at her in a crowded place, surely. They could hit any number of innocents. She had fired weapons more than once herself and knew how inaccurate they could be. “If nobody can get close enough to stab me, or I’m with people you trust, surely I’m fine.”

  “I don’t like it.” He took her hand as if to assure himself of her safety.

  “Marcus, this house is beautiful, and the garden too, but…”

  His mother continued when Viola’s voice trailed off. She had not seen the look of helplessness in Marcus’s eyes. Or if she had, she chose to ignore it. “She will run mad if she stays here much longer. Marcus, Viola is a country girl. She is used to roaming free.”

  He turned his attention to her as if nobody else sat around the dining table, giving her his complete attention. “Is this true? Are you unhappy?”

  “No, of course not,” she said, but his mother’s exasperated sound told another story.

  “Take her out,” Lady Strenshall said. “Show her some of the city. And for heaven’s sake, let her meet our friends. Not just the family. People will begin to believe something is wrong.”

  “Nothing is wrong!” Viola said.

  Marcus lifted her hand to his lips. “Yes, it is. Mama is right. Would you like to go to the opera tomorrow night?”

  Instead of preparing for a night at home, Viola had her maid dress her in a brand new lavender silk. Then she tied the black band around her upper arm. She wore black gloves, too, but excitement simmered low in her belly. She had never been to the opera before. Plays, of course. Her aunt in York adored going to the theater, but she had an aversion to opera, so on opera nights they’d stayed at home.

  Viola liked singing, doing it and listening, although her voice was not above average. She could play, though, and she enjoyed music.

  What she did not feel was fear. Marcus would take care of her, and just in case of danger, she had a small knife secreted in her pocket, sheathed in soft leather. Small, but enough to do serious damage should she wish it. She would not hesitate if anyone attacked her.

  The opera held a danger if she sat in the Strenshall family box. Isolated in that way she could form a target. So Marcus took her to a more public seat on the balcony. A footman sat behind her, not in livery. Tranmere made Viola feel much safer. She suspected Marcus had employed others, but when they had taken their seats, he leaned to her and murmured, “Julius knows we are here. He has put men in the audience.”

  She almost laughed. Who was she to draw such attention? She still felt like Viola Gates, the unimportant daughter of an estate manager, a woman who could not expect her appearance to attract undue interest.

  She had not changed.

  People stared at her. They would not know the secret of her parentage, so they were staring at her because she was a new bride. She had unexpectedly taken one of the most eligible bachelors in the country off the market. They wanted to assess. Maybe the ladies who were freer with their favors wanted to see exactly how devoted Marcus was as a husband.

  He gave her most flattering attention. He took her fan from her and wafted cool air over her face when she exclaimed it was hot in the theater. A chandelier blazed above them, the a hundred burning candles heating the air.

  Despite those distractions, plus the constant chattering of the audience, Viola thoroughly enjoyed the opera. At a particularly poignant moment when the soprano was giving her all, a tear escaped from the corner of her eye. It slipped down the side of her cheek.

  Marcus gave her his handkerchief, which she took with a grateful smile, dabbing at the tear before she returned it to him. “Music affects me very much,” she explained.

  His smile held warmth, but the corners of his lips were tilted. “I remember.”

  Ah, yes, that time when he’d caught her playing a bawdy song on the best harpsichord. “That was different.” But although she lifted her chin and tried for her best haughty expression, she glanced at him and gave him a reluctant smile.

  Then she returned her attention to the stage. The performers were excellent, and the music superb. Handel, she assumed, from the stately pace and the tragic nature of the opera. A king returned from exile to find a wife and children unfairly persecuted. Of course, after expressing a number of admirable sentiments at length and musically, they perished horribly.

  Viola thoroughly enjoyed it. She especially enjoyed the part where the king sang for a good five minutes, although he was poisoned and pierced through with half a dozen swords before finally succumbing.

  The whole experience drained her. Although the evening held more entertainments, a ballet and a farce, Viola had all she wanted from the opera.

  “You’re tired, sweetheart?” Marcus asked.

  When she said yes, he set about ordering the carriage to take them home.

  Seeing the moonlit piazza of Covent Garden before them, Viola would have dearly loved to walk back and see more of this tantalizing city. The glimpses she’d had of it were not nearly enough.

  They stood in the portico of the opera house, breathing in the cool night air, when someone approached. Marcus stiffened, and then relaxed. “Lord Dorsetshire,” he said.

  His lordship, a man of around fifty, and his wife, who needed a considerable amount of pink satin to swath her form, smiled and bowed.

  The lady watched Viola through narrowed eyes. “I wondered who was lovely enough to draw Lord Malton’s attention away from our Elizabeth,” she said. “Now I see you for myself, I perfectly understand why he could not resist you.”

  Just as if she’d seduced Marcus into marrying her. For two pins she would have told her ladyship so, but with a rare moment of discretion, Viola controlled her tongue. “We have known each other for a long time,” she said.

  “Ah, yes, your father was…his estate manager?” A note of disbelief crept into her voice.

  “And a distant relation to the family.” She hated making that claim, as if that made everything all right, made her eligible.

  Marcus drew her closer. She had her hand tucked into the crook of his arm. The soft fabric of his coat rubbed her fingers. “Viola has her own charms,” he said.

  Viola could have groaned. He’d made matters worse. Could he not see the lady was looking for a reason for him to have spurned her daughter in favor of someone who was no better than a servant? She kept the smile on her face, but it had become a rictus.

  “And such haste!” The lady’s gaze deliberately swept Viola from head to toe, lingering on her stomach.

  Ah, ye
s, she could be pregnant. After the way they had spent the last week, the likelihood had increased. That would give the society matrons—jealous cats!—reason to chatter. Lady Malton had trapped his lordship into marriage. Not because he wanted to keep her close to protect her from enemies who would stop at nothing to see her dead. Oh, no, that would not matter in the least.

  “My lady, a woman may attract a man without trying.” She did her best.

  Marcus lifted Viola’s hand and pressed a kiss to the knuckles. Even though she wore gloves, he affected her, and she could barely resist the sensual way her eyelids drooped when he used such tactics. He knew it, too.

  A wicked smile deepened the creases at the corners of his mouth. “A woman may indeed do that,” he said. “I could scarcely believe I was so blind when I met her recently after a few years’ absence. I had nearly missed all that loveliness.”

  “Your father approves?” Lord Dorsetshire said. He looked at Viola too, but his gaze lingered on her breasts.

  Viola wanted to cover up. He made her feel unclean, the way his lips loosened even more, revealing a very wet underbite.

  “Naturally,” Marcus said in a tight voice.

  He was not pleased. Why the Dorsetshires could not detect his displeasure Viola didn’t know, because to her it was unmistakable.

  “But had my father opposed it, I still would have gone ahead. I would not willingly let Viola go to any other man.”

  He sounded like a man in love. Which was wrong, because he had married her for different reasons.

  Her carriage drew up, the crest gleaming in the golden light of the flambeaux flaming in their sconces, making it easy for everyone to see them.

  Relieved, Viola allowed Marcus to hand her into the vehicle before following her himself. At once he reached for her, drew her face to his, and kissed her. Although he did not make the embrace an overly passionate one, it was nevertheless a potent exhibition of what their marriage meant. Not a meeting of great fortunes or political alliances, but a meeting of bodies.

  Viola would have liked a meeting of minds, but she would take whatever came her way.

  What did come her way was passion. Marcus kept her hand in his on the short journey home. As soon as the carriage rumbled away over the cobbles, he let out a sigh of relief. “I cannot tell you how glad I am that ordeal is over!”

  “Did you not enjoy the opera?” she asked, disappointed.

  “Not that. Our first appearance in public as a married couple. I detest being the center of attention, and I fear we were. People gossiped about us, and I daresay we will feature strongly in the scandal sheets tomorrow.”

  “I wasn’t aware you read them.”

  “Papa reads everything. We all do, if we have time. Those rags tell us what public opinion is tending towards as much as any serious piece. Nobody admits to reading them, yet they sell hundreds of copies every day. They can’t all be to coffee houses and the lower orders.”

  “You did not like people talking about us. Neither did I, but they will do it whether we are there or not.”

  “I will find some select musicales to take you to. Whatever got into my head, taking you to a public place? I must be going insane,” Marcus said with feeling. “I could not rest for looking about me, wondering where the next attack would come from.”

  “It will not do, Marcus,” she said decidedly. “We cannot go about our lives worrying. The people who—” She broke off, finding it difficult to articulate the next part, took a breath, and continued. “The people who killed my father to get to me may never be found.”

  “Oh, we will find them,” Marcus said, a grim line to his mouth. “Never fear. And we will do it soon, because I want you to enjoy next season.”

  “I’m enjoying this one.”

  “It’s hardly a season. They will close the playhouses and opera houses soon for the summer. We will either stay quietly in town or go into the country. In any case, we should return to Haxby next month for the shooting party.”

  She shuddered. A week or more of sudden retorts and dozens of birds thumping to the ground. They would be eating pheasant for a week, and so would the villagers. “I will do my best.”

  They rolled through the smoother streets of the West End, towards home. “You don’t need to do your best,” he said. “You only have to be yourself.”

  As well for him to say. He did not have to endure the insolent stares of people trying to assess why she had trapped him.

  When they arrived home, he hustled her upstairs and into her room, startling her maid, who was preparing the place for her. Her night rail lay across the embroidered bedcover and the dressing table was laid out neatly with freshly cleaned brushes.

  At their entry, the maid took one look at them, bobbed a curtsey, and scuttled away through the jib-door.

  Viola doubted very much Marcus had noticed. The gleam in his eyes demonstrated intent clearly enough for her. Her heart beat harder, and her breath came in short gasps. “Marcus…”

  He seized her by the waist and pushed her against the wall by the door. Half crushed by the weight of their bodies, her hoops belled out at the sides, ominous cracking sounds coming from the whalebone. Marcus ignored her protests and took her mouth in a savage kiss.

  Viola responded. When he dragged handfuls of her skirts up, she pressed against the wall. She pushed her body towards his, wetness dewing the apex between her legs. He shoved his hand between her thighs, roughly urging her legs apart. Then he lifted her, dragging her up with one hand while he fumbled at the fall of his breeches with the other.

  With clumsy haste, he freed his shaft and pushed it into her. Swaths of lilac silk fell between them, but he pulled them free and kissed her again before pausing.

  “What you do to me, Viola. I could not bear the danger. I have no idea what was happening on stage. I took no notice of it.” He thrust deeply into her over and over. “I will not lose you. I will not.”

  Gasping, she said his name. That only impelled him to further efforts to nail her to the wall. He hammered into her, her body thudding against the paneling, the dado rail digging into her back with every hard, punishing stroke. He drove her higher, and when her fall came, he growled like an animal claiming its mate.

  Thrills coursed up her spine. They exploded in her head, forcing her up and up, until she exploded in a series of what felt like jagged sparks.

  The conflagration burned out of control. He continued to thrust inside her. Her passage clenched, tightened around his cock, until he gave one sharp cry and pulsed his seed deep inside her. Continuing to thrust, he pressed his forehead against hers and whispered her name, so intimately she melted all over again.

  The sound of their breath sawing in and out of their lungs mingled with the clop of horses and carriage outside, the occasional shout from someone in the street. But that was another world, not the one that occupied them now.

  “All I could think of was your safety,” he said between hard pants. “Any minute I expected to hear a shot or feel cold steel in my back. I’m going insane, Viola. Stop me doing this.”

  She laughed shakily, rejoicing that she should matter so much to him. He had gone beyond duty, whether he realized it or not. “Marcus, I will be safe, I promise. I won’t let anyone hurt me.”

  “Now that is a foolish answer.” He sounded more normal as he drew away and let her feet slide to the floor.

  She had lost a shoe in their encounter and landed awkwardly, but compensated by standing on tiptoe. “I do believe you cracked my new petticoat.” She tried to sound stern, but she could not.

  “So I am reduced to the status of lady’s maid again tonight?”

  “Certainly not. I will ring for her, and you may return in half an hour.” It would take that long to unwind all the silk and find the pins he’d dislodged. Her hair was half down, and not from design, and her stomacher had twisted. She must present an exceedingly bedraggled figure.

  “Spoken like a true countess.” He stepped away and found her shoe
when he nearly stumbled over it. He picked it up and handed it to her with a bow. “And perhaps a Cinderella.”

  She had read the quaint tales of Perrault in a book in the library at Haxby. Perhaps he had read the same book. “I will not prove the point by sleeping in the ashes.”

  He caught her hand and lifted it to his mouth, but this time he pressed a kiss into the center of her palm. He folded her fingers over it. “Keep that for me. I will return. I will not apologize for what I did to you just now, Viola. I wanted to possess you, God help me.”

  “Did I demand an apology? I would rather you did it again. It was”—she paused, searching for the right words—“deeply thrilling.”

  She received another kiss for that before he left to prepare himself for bed.

  He left the room through the door connecting with his. He appeared just as disheveled, half his waistcoat buttons undone or torn away and his breeches only fastened with the two buttons at the top. She’d rammed her fingers into his hair, and it was as tousled as hers must be.

  But that encounter had shown her how much he wanted her. Dared she assume he cared for her more deeply than protection or duty would suggest?

  Chapter 15

  Town gossiped. It had gossiped when Marcus and Viola had kept to the house. Now they appeared in public, it gossiped even more. Finally Viola decided to take her fate into her own hands.

  Tired of staying in, receiving only the guests Marcus and his cousins approved of, after another week, she came to a few conclusions. However, when she tried to discuss her situation with him, Marcus kissed her into submission and made love to her instead of engaging in rational argument.

  The problem was not resolving as quickly as Marcus would have liked. It could go on for years, the thought of which gave Viola a terror of being overprotected for a long time to come

  Accordingly, once Marcus had left the house for his club, she called her maid and Tranmere and announced her intention of going shopping.