by Karen Ranney
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Chapter 17
Mist clung to the ground and to the trunks of the old trees. From the courtyard, Davina could see only the beginning of the maze; the rest of the hedges disappeared into the white gloom. There was not a squirrel or bird to be seen, as if nature was holding a convocation somewhere and they’d all disappeared to gather together. Even the trees seemed to be only partially there, the tendrils of the fog curling around the lower branches and obscuring them from sight.
Why did it feel as if the landscape was waiting, as if Ambrose itself had paused? An immense quiet settled over the great estate. Davina could hear nothing—no maids, no noises from the stables, no gardeners, no footmen, nothing but a cushiony silence all around her. As if time itself had stopped.
Time—a commodity that had evidently fascinated the Earls of Lorne as well. If not, both father and son wouldn’t have been so intent upon Egypt’s history.
She began to walk, brushing her hand along her skirts as if to dislodge the most tenacious remnants of mist. According to a footman stationed at the door to the family dining room, His Lordship had gone riding this morning.
A girlfriend’s mother had been badly injured in a carriage accident on a day such as this. Ever since then, Davina was mindful of how unpredictable horses could be in this kind of weather. One might be startled by the wisps of fog, or not see a rabbit hole until it was too late.
How like Marshall to take chances.
She walked as far as the obelisk and stood next to it, surveying the fog-ridden countryside. Today the obelisk looked even more foreign than usual, shrouded as it was at the base with thick Scottish fog. She put her hand flat against the stone, her thumb tracing a portion of the hieroglyphs inscribed there.
A few moments later, she heard the hoofbeats of a horse echoing in the fog, and Marshall was suddenly there, leaning forward on his black horse and taking the incline down into the glen as if he were being pursued by demons.
He was dressed as he often was, in a white shirt, black trousers, and boots. He was coatless and hatless, a brigand upon a magnificent ebony horse.
Finally he slowed the horse to a walk, dismounted, and stood beside the animal, leaning his forearms against the saddle. Long moments later, he turned and faced her.
“Exhausting myself doesn’t keep me from wanting you,” he said as a greeting.
Warmth shot through her.
“Should I apologize?”
“I doubt it would do any good,” he said, eyeing her as if she were a stranger.
She wished she’d taken more care with her appearance instead of simply grabbing the first dress her hand reached in the armoire. She’d not roused Nora to help her, intent upon this very confrontation.
Days had passed, and her anger had grown. Anger at being in love unwisely. Anger at being in love with a man who was insisting upon being a mystery. Anger at him for being so alone and refusing to share his life with her.
“You’re young and innocent and untried, unseasoned in the ways of the world. Ignorant.”
She almost took a step back at the unexpected attack, but she held her ground, folded her arms in front of her, and regarded him impassively. It was with some difficulty that she schooled her features to reveal nothing of the sudden hurt and shock she felt. How could he give her the most delightful of compliments in one moment and excoriate her in the next?
“You look terrible,” she said. “Have you slept at all in the past week?”
“Little enough,” he answered. “And you? Where the hell have you been for a week? Nora tells me that you’ve been eating, but that you haven’t spoken very much.”
“Perhaps I should consider myself blessed that you consulted Nora, and not Mrs. Murray.”
“Are you still angry? It happened years ago, Davina, almost beyond my memory.”
At that, she stared at him incredulously. “Is that what you will say to your next wife? Poor Davina, I barely remember her. She was a mousy little thing. You know she wore spectacles. And she was forever given to quoting odd facts, always out of context.”
“Not quite out of context,” he countered, “but always amusing. And I doubt I would ever marry again after this experience. Are you dying? Is that why you’ve hidden yourself away?”
“You’re forever going on about harming me, Marshall. Perhaps you’ll kill me.”
He took a step toward her, and it was only too obvious that he was controlling his temper with some difficulty. Why should he bother now?
“You say you do not wish to cause me injury, Marshall, but you have caused me more injury in the last week than anyone has in my entire life.” She hated the fact that her voice quavered, but she faced him steadily.
He looked stunned by her admission.
“Is that why you’ve sought me out?” he asked, carefully stepping back from her. “To tell me how much I’ve harmed you?”
“No,” she said. “I finally believe you. You truly do not wish a marriage. You do not want a friendship, and you certainly do not crave a companion. Fornication, however, is necessary between us to provide you with an heir. It’s for this reason that I’m here.”
“It’s called fucking, Davina. If you refer to it at all, call it what it is. Fucking. A good, old-fashioned, Anglo-Saxon word.”
She turned and began walking toward the Egypt House, unbuttoning the row of buttons down the bodice of her dress.
“Then shall we begin?” she called over her shoulder. “It’s nearly noon. And after a good, old-fashioned, Anglo-Saxon fucking, I’ll no doubt be hungry.”
Marshall stared after her, realizing that he’d never been rendered speechless by a woman. He’d challenged the might of the Emperor of China, had met with Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and had been attaché at Paris, Lisbon, and Stuttgart. He’d been on Gladstone’s staff. Never before had he been absolutely flummoxed, and not by any woman, but by his wife.
For a week she’d disappeared, retreating into her suite of rooms as if she were avoiding him. Nor could he blame her. He’d spent the last week certain that she was regretting their marriage. Certain, too, that she’d emerge from her room and demand to return to Edinburgh.
For that, also, he couldn’t blame her.
Instead she’d become a termagant with flashing eyes.
He followed her into the Egypt House.
“Shall we do it here?” she said, looking for a bare spot on the floor. “Or in your office?”
Marshall grabbed her hand and pulled her with him, striding up the staircase that led to his office. Once there, he tapped on a door set into the wall so perfectly that it was nearly invisible. He opened it, revealing a small bedroom lit by the weak light from one narrow window. The door closed behind them slowly, almost as if giving her an opportunity to escape.
“What is this place?” she asked, looking around her.
The room was spartan, the furnishings only a narrow bed and one ladder-back chair.
He smiled. “A secret refuge. A place my father used when he didn’t choose to go back to Ambrose.”
“How absolutely clever. And so opportune. This way, we can fuck in the daylight and you can retreat to your chamber at night.”
She smiled sweetly, but he wasn’t fooled. She was blazingly angry.
“Why did you stay away for a week?” he asked.
“I simply did what you asked,” she said. “I was avoiding the madman I married.”
“And now?”
“Procreation,” she said patiently, as if he were a half-wit. “I cannot do it on my own.”
He leaned against the door frame and folded his arms.
“We should get it out of the way before gloaming, of course. Since you need to disappear at nightfall. I’m beginning to think that the moon must do something very strange to you.”
“I’ve already told you why I leave you.”
“Because you’re a madman?”
“Yes, damn it.”
“Then w
hy don’t you act the lunatic with me?” she asked calmly.
He frowned at her.
“If you’re truly a madman, why aren’t you one all the time? Why not at breakfast? Why not now? Is it only at midnight? Or at dawn?”
He didn’t have an answer. Nor did he feel comfortable admitting that he’d never considered such a thing before this moment.
“You’ve evidently given my condition some thought.”
“I’ve had a week to think of nothing else,” she said airily. “Are you certain you don’t drink some tonic?”
He smiled faintly. “Something to render me a different creature?”
“Well, perhaps you should at least entertain the thought.”
“The only tonic I imbibe is wine.”
“Then you shouldn’t,” she said firmly.
At his silence she sighed. “It’s all right, Marshall. I’ve learned that I can deal quite well without you. I’ve grown quite accustomed to sleeping most of the day. And when that does not suit, I read. I’ve read a great deal in the last week, Marshall. I may trouble you to send to the jeweler’s for another pair of spectacles. I do believe that there might come a time when I wear the very glass from mine.”
“Should I succumb to base honesty? I’ve missed you, Davina. Even my footmen have commented to me about your absence, and Jacobs has mentioned your indisposition more than once.”
She lowered her head and stared fixedly at his shirt.
“I should not be fascinated with you,” he said.
She nodded. “In other words, I should be more experienced to have garnered your attention,” she said. “A woman of the world, perhaps. Not a mousy woman of Edinburgh. Someone with blond hair, perhaps?”
“Mousy? Are you daft? I know, for a fact, that there are dozens of mirrors at Ambrose.” He looked around the bedroom. “There’s one there,” he said, pointing to the far wall. “Look in the damn thing. You’ll see what I see. You’re a beautiful woman, Davina. But I’d never thought you to be so needful of reminding.”
She frowned at him. “And you claim to be a diplomat? Every woman needs to be reminded, Marshall.”
He took a step back, and was hit in the chest with a dozen hairpins. She unfastened the last of her buttons too forcefully, and then threw the button at him.
“I was wrong,” she said ridding herself of her chemise with surprising speed. “I’m hungrier than I thought I was. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning. So, if you don’t mind, if we could do this quickly, I’d be very much obliged.”
She put her hands on her naked hips and surveyed him, obviously irritated.
“Is there anything I need to do? I would think that seeing a naked woman would be quite enough. But if it isn’t, please just advise me. After all, I’m not a woman of the world. However, I am a very good student. I can learn what I do not know. Once I make a mistake, I try not to repeat it. Therefore, we can suit very well if you’ll just tell me at what part of the act you consider me deficient.”
She bent and pulled off her stockings. Where had her shoes gone? Her hair was tumbling over her shoulders, and he didn’t think that he had ever seen such a delightful sight as Davina, naked, sitting on the edge of the bed, one leg drawn up immodestly.
She noticed where he was looking and smiled back at him, an impish little smile that didn’t quite match the anger in her eyes.
“Should I cower beneath the sheets, Marshall? Should I pretend to tremble? Do you only like fearful women?”
Her voice was meant to be cutting, he was sure. The fact that she could not mask the small smile that tilted her lips somewhat softened her mood and her message.
He leaned against the wall, wondering just how far she’d go in this little demonstration.
Just for the sake of comfort, he toed off his boots, but more than that, he was not prepared to go.
She moved the pillows behind her and then sat up against the headboard, one leg angled in a slightly more modest pose than before. But he could still see her breasts, quite large breasts for a woman her size. They weren’t being modest at all. Instead, her nipples were pointing at him impudently.
“I’m getting hungrier,” she said. “Would you like me to lie down flat on the bed and spread my legs? Would that make it faster?”
The temperature was rather warm in there, so he unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. His pants were getting a little snug as well but he had no intention of removing them.
She slid down on the bed and contemplated the ceiling. “I wonder what the kitchen staff will bring me for lunch? I’ve asked them to serve me here. Do you mind?” She raised her head and looked at him. “I wouldn’t want the soup to grow cold.”
She smiled brightly at him, propped up on one elbow, and surveyed him intently. “You don’t look mad. You’re frowning quite fiercely, true, but is that how a madman is supposed to look?”
“What game are you playing, Davina?”
She looked absurdly innocent for a naked woman sprawled on his bed. His bed.
He’d barely slept during the last week and was incredibly tired. Why shouldn’t he sleep for an hour or two?
The next two buttons were easily unfastened, and the shirt was suddenly gone. The damn pants were next.
She tapped her bottom lip with a forefinger. “Does a madman foam at the mouth like a mad dog?”
He wasn’t entirely certain he was sane right at the moment, but he wasn’t thinking of harming her. Perhaps he should warn her, nonetheless.
“I’m going to join you on the bed, Davina, and no doubt shock our staff if they are foolish enough to deliver your lunch.”
“Oh?” She raised one eyebrow and smiled. “The act of a madman, Marshall?”
“Will you stop saying that?”
“Why?” she asked. “You use the term often enough. Too often, I think.”
“Shall we consider a moratorium, then? No mention of madness or insanity for an hour or so?”
“Because you want to fuck?”
“Let’s have a moratorium on that word as well,” he said, removing the last of his clothes and bounding onto the bed.
The mattress sagged with his weight, rolling her toward him.
He reached for his wife, climbed on top of her, and lowered himself until his body was barely touching hers.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to taunt the Devil?”
Her smile was luminous. “Oh, bother, Marshall, you’re not a devil. How could you be?”
“You’re impossible,” he said, but his voice sounded too kind.
She only smiled.
“Doesn’t your arm pain you?” she asked. His bandage was smaller today, but it was still evident.
“Does it seem to?” he asked, smiling.
“Did the doctor leave you something for the pain?”
“I wouldn’t take it,” he said shortly.
“That sounds a little stubborn, foolishly so.”
His lips brushed against hers in the lightest of touches as his hands ran from the rounding of her shoulders to the violin curve of her back, a delectable and seductive undulation of femininity. She cupped the back of his head with one hand, her palm curving along the line of his skull.
Her hair was really quite glorious, with its chestnut thickness revealing streaks of red and gold. Her form was perfect, her breasts full, and her legs long and shapely. But beyond her feminine endowments, she had the smile of a Madonna and the delicate complexion of a Scottish lass.
She wiggled underneath him; there was no other word for it. So much for restraint. His fingers felt her, warm, wet, and welcoming. He slid a thumb through her folds and she trembled, widening her legs slightly.
An invitation he couldn’t refuse.
He slipped inside her and stilled, his arms braced on either side of her, his breath halted in the act of possession. Or was it submission? Her feet wrapped around his calves, her hands pressed against his chest, his shoulders, and then crept around to link at the back of his neck.
She crooned his name softly, a siren song almost impossible to ignore, but he didn’t move, trapped on the precipice of sensations so exquisite that he closed his eyes to savor the feeling.
“Are you absolutely certain there was nothing in your father’s library about fornication?”
“I’m certain of it. I’d have learned more about it if there had been,” she said.
“Good God,” he said, opening his eyes. “I wouldn’t have survived it.”
He wanted her to be part of this enchantment, more heady and debilitating than any dream or imagination, and more important than his past.
She was lax in his arms, pliant to his demands, a woman not given to either laxity or pliancy. This, too, was a gift, and he recognized it even if she did not.
He kissed her, softly at first, and then more deeply. But he didn’t allow himself to move.
Making love to Davina was like being in a giant tunnel of fire. He was unharmed, but not untouched, by the searing heat. Each moan she made drew the flames closer, each touch of her hands on his skin made them arc higher.
He drew back, looked into her face, taut with the strain of wanting, needing, and being artfully denied.
He bent forward and kissed her on the forehead, framed her face with his hands, brushed her hair out of the way with fingers that trembled slightly.
She might take herself away from him, or the madness might return. Either situation would draw him back to his memories, and it was for that reason that he stretched out the moment. He wanted to remember everything about her, from the slight hitch at the end of her indrawn breath, to the impatient drum of her fingertips and nails on his back.
He wanted to be able to recall the speed of her heart, measured by the press of his lips against the pulse at her neck. He wanted to be able to remember how it felt to be deep inside her, to fill the whole of her with the heat and the hardness of his cock.
She trembled, the sensation so faint that it was almost like an entreaty. Submission and power. But who was the submissive, and who the powerful in this joining?
He rose up on his knees and pulled her up until she was sitting astride him, her legs on either side, her breasts pressed against his chest. There was a look in her eyes of such confusion and desire that he threaded his fingers through her hair and jerked her head down for a kiss.
