Claimed by the Marquis

by Carole Mortimer

  It was more a giggle of relief than actual amusement, in having been so successful in her first attempt at giving sexual pleasure. In knowing she had succeeded in completely unmanning a gentleman of Nicholas Sefton’s years and experience.

  Sally shook her head. “No more than the effect you have on me.” She continued to smile. “What a sight we would look if someone were to walk in now, me with my skirts up about my waist and my drawers in such disarray I am no doubt completely bared to the elements.”

  “Whereas I am also bared to anyone who cares to see, the room reeks of sex, and my rebellious cock is refusing to stand down,” Nicholas finished dryly. “You are right.” He moved to lie on the long table beside her, both of them staring up at the ceiling. “Anyone walking in now could be forgiven for thinking they had entered a bawdy house rather than a dining room in a respectable wayside inn.”

  Sally turned on her side to look at him, reassured by the smile that now curved those sculptured lips. “The funniest part about it is that I do not care.” She chuckled.

  Nicholas had never cared what people thought of him or his actions. But Sally? If she would not, then he must have a care where her reputation was concerned. Whether she realized it or not, so far today he would be able to protect that reputation to anyone who dared question it. No one but he and Sally knew her maid had not traveled in the carriage with them to Berkshire. The innkeeper could be persuaded into forgetting they had ever been here together. If any were brave enough to suggest it was otherwise, then they would live to regret it.

  And the grimness of his thoughts had at last succeeded in dampening his ardor enough that Nicholas was able to sit up and return his semi-hardened cock back inside his pantaloons and refasten them before assisting Sally down from the table so that she might straighten her own clothing.

  “It is not too late,” he told her gruffly. “If you wish to change your mind, I can see that you are safely returned to London without any being the wiser.”

  She gave him a searching glance. “Do you wish me to return to Town?”

  His mouth thinned. “No.”

  “Then I believe I am hungry after all.” Her hair was in disarray, her gold gown creased, and her lips slightly swollen from the invasion of his cock, but they were also curved into a happy smile, and her eyes glowed with that same emotion.

  Nicholas realized that he was hungry too. For actual food this time. “Then let us, by all means, eat. My lady.” He extended his arm for her to take before proceeding to seat her with great formality, feeling more lighthearted than he had been for some time. He pulled back her chair and then pushed it back in again as she sat. He placed a napkin neatly across her thighs and poured her some wine before taking his seat opposite her at the table.

  He had shown her the worst of himself, his domination, his sexual demands, and she did not wish to run away. This summer promised to be the best he had known for some time. If ever.

  It was not only lightheartedness he felt, Nicholas realized as they proceeded to devour the delicious cold luncheon, but actual contentment. Almost happiness.

  Emotions that were completely alien to him.

  He had not shared a close relationship with his father. That gentleman’s emotions had always been too closed off inside himself. His mother had “suffered” with ill health for most of Nicholas’s life, it seemed, and had rarely been well enough to be of any maternal benefit to her only child.

  He had a circle of like-minded male friends, gentlemen of whom he was fond and met for luncheon at his club, or sparred with at the boxing saloon they all frequented. They spent many evenings together too, gambling and drinking, before retiring to one or another of the houses of the demimonde.

  But Nicholas could never remember feeling quite as relaxed and at ease in a lady’s company before this, most especially so after the two of them had minutes ago enjoyed each other’s bodies to the fullest.

  It seemed it was not only Sally’s reputation he would need to have a care for this summer, but quite possibly his emotions. It would be exceedingly foolish of him to become fond of this woman, when he was so obviously nothing more than an exciting interlude in Sally’s life of independence.

  If Sally had expected the second half of the journey to be less stressful than the first, for the awkward silence between herself and Nicholas to have abated after their sexual closeness and laughter at the inn, then she was disappointed.

  If anything, the silence was even more oppressive as Nicholas chose to once again sit opposite her in the carriage rather than beside her, his expression one of brooding contemplation as he stared grimly out the window beside him.

  Indeed, his expression was so distant, Sally’s own chatter ceased after the first few minutes, and she also lapsed into a less than comfortable silence.

  Until, that is, they passed through the wide-walled gates into what was the road leading up to a magnificent house perched on a hill. Tall and imposing, with two wings fanning out from the main mellow brick building, it overlooked a parkland where several dozen deer grazed or looked up at the passing carriage in unruffled contemplation, before returning to cropping the rich green grass.

  “Is this Oxbridge Park?” she prompted, eyes alight with pleasure.

  “It is,” Nicholas confirmed economically, feeling none of that same excitement at having reached their destination.

  He had spent his early years growing up here on the principal Oxbridge estate. Lonely years, caught between a father’s indifference and a mother’s preference for keeping to her rooms rather than spending time with her husband or son.

  Consequently, Nicholas felt an oppression rather than joy whenever he came here, his visits a duty rather than a pleasure.

  As expected, the household staff had been alerted to his imminent arrival by the earlier arrival of Sally’s maid and his own valet. They were all there waiting to greet them, headed by Barker the butler, and Mrs. Jackson the housekeeper, lined up outside on the graveled driveway as Nicholas and his guest stepped down from the carriage.

  Nicholas would have preferred a less…public reception, both for himself and the young woman with whom he intended to share his bed for much of the summer.

  Chapter 10

  Nicholas is home!

  And as he said, he has not come alone.

  As I expected, it is a woman who has accompanied him.

  Lady Sally Derwent is her name, and she is young and very beautiful.

  Far too young and beautiful to be merely a traveling companion.

  Why is Nicholas doing this to me? What have I done that he should punish me in this way?

  Perhaps I have done nothing? Perhaps this young woman has forced her attentions upon him, and he is, as ever, too much the gentleman to spurn her?

  Never fear, my darling Nicholas, I shall, as always, ensure your happiness prevails.

  No matter what the cost.

  Chapter 11

  “Mother.” Nicholas bent to bestow a kiss on his parent’s cheek once admitted into the bedchamber where Elizabeth Mary Sefton, the Dowager Marchioness of Oxbridge, reclined against a mountain of pillows and was covered by an abundance of sheets and blankets.

  Her latest in a long line of yapping little dogs—Cesar? Rex? There had been so many over the years Nicholas had lost track of which one this was—stared up at him with squinty little eyes from its position of power on the bed beside his mistress.

  Aware that his mother would already have been informed as to his expected arrival, Nicholas had preferred to dispose of this duty visit as soon as was possible. Consequently, he had lingered at the house only long enough to ensure Sally was safely in the hands of his housekeeper and being shown to the suite of rooms readied for her arrival. Once that matter was dispensed with, he had left the house to go round to the stables at the back of the house and reacquaint himself with his horse, Thor.

  It was such a pleasant day still that he had delayed his arrival at the Dower House by calling at the home of his estat
e manager, where he and the other man engaged in a discussion of the west wood and crops for some half an hour or so. Finally, Nicholas realized he was just delaying the inevitable and took his leave to ride the mile or so farther on to the Dower House, where his mother had resided since shortly after his father’s death.

  As if she could no longer bear to live in the house where she had been so unhappily married.

  Or to avoid looking at Nicholas too often, when he resembled his sire so much.

  No matter. Nicholas had never shared a warm relationship with his mother, and he could not see that changing at this late stage in their acquaintance.

  However, her illness this time appeared to be genuine. Still delicately beautiful, there were nevertheless more streaks of gray amidst her dark hair than the last time Nicholas had seen her, and her face was pale and drawn. Her eyes were completely without animation as she looked up at him, her body so thin beneath the bedclothes, it barely made any impression against them.

  Nicholas made a mental note to speak to her doctor at that gentleman’s earliest convenience, to enquire as to the reason for his mother’s latest malaise. There were certainly more than enough medicine bottles on the bedside table.

  “Shall I send for tea?” Cousin Maud, a contemporary of his mother’s, fluttered about in the background in her usual irritating fashion.

  Which was unkind of him, Nicholas admonished himself. Cousin Maud had never married but instead dedicated herself to the care and comfort of his mother, her only living relative, after the death of her own parents some thirty-five years ago. As such, she did not deserve his irritation or his contempt.

  “Thank you, I would appreciate that,” he accepted with a genuinely warm smile as he took up occupancy of the chair beside his mother’s bed.

  “I will see to it immediately.” She returned his smile, a slightly plump and excitable lady who had a penchant for knocking things off their perch as she bustled from room to room. Today was no exception, as she bumped into a table, only just managing to stop the vase of flowers from tumbling to the ground before she righted it again.

  The smile remained on Nicholas’s own lips until Cousin Maud finally left the room without further mishap. Genuinely concerned, he turned back to his mother. She did not appear to be “enjoying” this latest illness at all.

  “It is good of you to call so promptly after your arrival.” His mother lifted her hand as if about to touch him, and then appeared to think better of it, and instead allowed it to fall back onto the brocade coverlet.

  “Your health is of paramount importance to me.” Nicholas realized he spoke the truth. The two of them might never have been as close as he believed a mother and son should be, but that did not mean he had no love for her. She was his mother, no matter what their differences might be.

  “Is it…?”

  “Yes.” He scowled at the skepticism he detected in her tone. “What does Dr. Ambrose say about this latest illness?”

  His mother smiled weakly. “What does he ever have to say? It is my nerves. Hysteria brought on by an overactive imagination.”

  His mother currently appeared too lethargic to be suffering with any of those things. “What does he prescribe?” Nicholas had served almost five years in Wellington’s army, had seen more than his fair share of soldiers in pain and the effects of the laudanum used to numb it: lethargy, dilated pupils, hallucinations—or, in the case of his mother, an overactive imagination?

  “The medicine is there.” She waved her hand in the direction of the night table beside the bed with its vast array of bottles.

  Nicholas frowned darkly. “And what form does this…overactive imagination usually take?”

  Her brow creased into a frown, only to clear again as she shook her head. “I cannot remember. Which must mean the medicine is working, I suppose,” she added without emotion.

  Nicholas was not of the same opinion. In fact, he intended calling upon Dr. Ambrose, not at the other man’s convenience but at his own. Which would be immediately after taking his leave of the Dower House.

  Whether the other man liked it or not, he intended getting to the bottom of his mother’s illness once and for all, felt more than a little ashamed that he had not bothered to do so before now.

  His only excuse was that he had never seen his mother in quite such a weakened state as this.

  Which was no excuse at all.

  “I did love you once, Nickie.”

  What the…? His mother had never called him Nickie before.

  “In the beginning,” his mother continued, her eyes staring off into the distance. “We were happy enough together then. We had each other. Then our darling son arrived. But then…” Her expression was pained, thin fingers clenched the coverlet on the bed. “It was the other women, you see. So many of them, I could no longer overlook or ignore them.”

  It gave Nicholas no comfort to realize that his mother’s words were not meant for him but his father, also named Nicholas. As had his father been before him, and so on. It was a family tradition Nicholas knew he would not continue. If he were ever to have a son. Which was not his intention in any case.

  “Your denials did not ring true,” his mother continued. “How could they, when rumor told me you had taken every willing woman in the county,” she added bitterly. “It is the reason I denied you my bed.”

  Nicholas was stunned, never having heard any of this before now. He had always thought his father loved his mother deeply, and that she was the one unable to return that love, who had shut herself off, first by denying her husband, and then by ignoring her son. But if his father had behaved in the way his mother described, perhaps that was the only means by which she’d known to protect herself and her heart in the face of her husband’s infidelity?

  How could Nicholas have known anything of his parents’ early married life? He had not truly become aware of anything until he was six, possibly seven, when he had noticed a certain coolness between them. But even then it had not been with any sense of real concern. Never having witnessed any other marriage, it had seemed normal to him. Besides, like most seven-year-olds, Nicholas had only been concerned with his own comfort, and that had been amply taken care of by an army of servants.

  He knew of many gentlemen in Society who had a mistress—or a string of mistresses—as well as a wife. Nicholas did not believe in infidelity, even toward a mistress, and he knew his close friends believed likewise. He had no doubts Blackmoor’s new duchess would gut him if the other man so much as thought of taking a mistress. Which he would not, because Blackmoor loved Thea deeply, wanted no other woman but her, nor would he ever.

  Nicholas had always believed his father loved his mother in the same way, that it had been his mother’s lack of feeling for her husband that had been the cause of the rift between them. What had gone so terribly wrong between the two of them his father had been unfaithful? So that all Nicholas remembered of their marriage was the closed-off coolness of his mother and the deep unhappiness of his father?

  His mother would not be giving him any answer to that question today, or any other, Nicholas acknowledged ruefully, as he saw she had fallen asleep.

  “I trust the rooms are to your liking?”

  Sally turned to look at the housekeeper. Mrs. Jackson was a woman possibly in her early forties, her faded red hair pulled back and secured in a bun at her nape. Even so, it was possible to see that she had once been—still was—an attractive woman, the plain black gown she wore molded to the fullness of her curves.

  Sally also sensed a certain…waspishness in the other woman’s demeanor. “They are more than adequate, thank you.” She nodded haughtily. She was the daughter of an earl, after all.

  “As dinner will not be served until eight o’clock, perhaps you would like some refreshment brought up to you now?”

  Again, the question was a polite one, but Sally sensed it was not being politely asked. Because the other woman disapproved of the presence of a young and single lady being t
he houseguest of a young and single gentleman? Or was it for another reason entirely?

  Mrs. Jackson really was a very handsome woman, and far closer to Oxbridge in age than Sally…

  Sally knew the ways of Society, that there often existed a sexual relationship between the master of the house and one of his female household staff. Ben Hewitt, who managed the Derwent estate in Derbyshire, was a product of such a relationship between her grandfather and his housekeeper, and so was half brother to Sally’s father.

  Had Nicholas, in the past, or perhaps still, had such a relationship with Mrs. Jackson? If that was the case, it was likely to be the cause of increasing discomfort on Sally’s part, and a deepening resentment on the housekeeper’s.

  She made up her mind to ask Nicholas when he returned.

  When he returned.

  Because Nicholas had deserted her almost as soon as they entered the house, after first greeting and introducing her to his household staff. He had given no explanation as to where he was going, only stated that Mrs. Jackson would see to her needs and he would see her again at dinner. Which was apparently still hours away.

  “You may send the tea up with my maid, thank you,” she accepted lightly. “And perhaps I might have some hot water for a bath? I feel somewhat dusty after traveling for so many hours.” Her cheeks warmed as she inwardly acknowledged a bath would also alleviate some of the discomfort in certain parts of her body, following that heated lovemaking with Oxbridge on top of the table at the inn.

  “Of course, my lady.” Mrs. Jackson nodded, tight-lipped.

  Sally waited until the housekeeper left the bedchamber before sinking down onto the side of the four-poster bed, still puzzling over the other woman’s disapproval. And no one here to give her the answer as to why. Namely Nicholas.

  She knew he would have estate business to deal with, had not expected that he would spend his every waking moment with her. She had brought her pad and pencils for sketching, lots of books to read—in addition to those from her grandmother’s collection—an embroidery to complete, as well as her music books, on the off chance there was a piano she might play at Oxbridge Park.