Wounds of A Viscount: (The Valiant Love Regency Romance) (A Historical Romance Book)

by Deborah Wilson

  He stared at her for long minutes and then chuckled. “All right.”

  “Yes?” Nora asked, amazed. “You’ll do this for me?”

  He smiled. “Anything.” He started to turn toward the door, but Nora grabbed his head. She didn’t want him to go. She liked him where he was.

  “No, you don’t have to go get her.” Nora reached out and knocked on the wall loudly. “Just kiss me.”

  Garrick looked where she knocked, then shrugged, and kissed Nora until she was weak, until she had to bite back a moan with her every breath, until Garrick’s hands began to roam places they shouldn’t… at least, not with an audience.

  Nora pulled away.

  Garrick’s smile matched her own.

  “Oh, my,” said a voice from the door. The voice didn’t sound like Ebba’s.

  “Well,” a man said with a mixture of disbelief and pleasure. That voice, Nora knew belonged to Lord Paxen.

  Both Nora and Garrett turned and had it not been for the strong arm that Garrick still had around her, Nora would have fainted.

  ∫ ∫ ∫

  3 0

  * * *

  Ebba was there with her parents, but there was more. The entire dinner party stood there with different expressions of dismay and delight. Nora had just given them enough on-dit to liven up every drawing room in London and beyond.

  She clung to Garrick only so she wouldn’t fall.

  She looked at Ebba and saw nothing but triumph in the woman’s eyes. She didn’t bother trying to hide her gratification and then she said, “Did I not promise you a grand surprise for the evening?” She was speaking to the crowd behind her. “I must commend my cousin. Garrick has been keeping his engagement a secret so as not to outdo my own announcement.” She turned to her crowd. “I’m to play Lady Macbeth this Season at The Rose.”

  The crowd gasped. The role of Lady Macbeth in a royal theatre was an actress’ greatest achievement.

  The crowd was all but distracted by this announcement and turned to ask Lord Paxen if it were true. Was the earl truly going to allow his daughter to lower herself to such a morally soiled profession?

  Nora used the time to try and extract herself from Garrick, but he held her firm.

  She looked at him and found him staring straight ahead with a blank expression.

  Lady Paxen managed to move around the group and approached them. She was smiling, but she looked nervous. “Garrick, Nora, I am so happy for you.”

  Garrick let her go and began to sign.

  Nora read his hands and quickly took note that the words weren’t for her. He wanted her to tell them to his aunt.

  Lady Paxen asked her. “What is he saying?”

  Nora swallowed and stared at Garrick. His eyes were now on her, but they were not friendly. He wanted her to tell his aunt what he’d said, but she couldn’t.

  Instead, she turned to Lady Paxen. “He’s upset. He…”

  Garrick stormed away and out of the room.

  Nora’s heart jerked at his departure.

  Lady Paxen put a hand on Nora’s arm and gained her attention. “It’s all right. You can tell me the truth. What did he say?” But the lady had already begun to pale and her eyes seemed lost.

  Nora couldn’t tell her, wouldn’t tell her that Garrick had just accused his family of the worst sort of betrayal and that he would never forget it.

  The words had pained Nora even though they hadn’t been directed at her.

  Garrick returned suddenly and some of Nora’s sadness began to seep away. He hadn’t abandoned her. He signed as he walked toward her. “The carriage is outside. We’re leaving.”

  “Together?” she asked.

  “Now.”

  “But…” She abandoned her words at the hostile and determined look in his gaze. He wanted to be gone, and he wanted her to go with him.

  She gave him her hand as he approached and then allowed him to escort her out of the room and the house. When they reached the carriage, she said, “Don’t you think you should go up there and tell them the truth?”

  “There is nothing to say.” He helped her into the carriage.

  Her panic rose again as she sat down. “Garrick, they think we are engaged.”

  “We are,” he said coolly. The shadowed carriage hid his face.

  “We are not.” She did not want to be engaged. She didn’t want to marry Garrick. He didn’t love her. She didn’t love him, though she did care for him deeply. She hadn’t realized just how important he was to her until tonight. When he’d ignored her efforts to speak to him, she’d been hurt. When others whispered about his inability to properly conduct a conversation, she’d been mortified. She barely managed to rein in her temper.

  And then he’d promised her anything and had kissed every other emotion but true desire from her mind.

  He sighed heavily. “Think. W-what choice…” His voice faded.

  What choice did they have?

  “Well, it certainly doesn’t help our case that we are together this way now.” But riding home in the same carriage could hardly ruin her reputation further. She’d been found with her tongue down Garrick’s throat.

  Ebba! She’d tricked them. Nora should have known something else was afoot. From the beginning, Ebba had wanted her and Garrick to marry. Nora was a fool for thinking the woman would settle for anything less.

  And with all of that, Nora didn’t even get her gun.

  When the carriage stopped, Garrick escorted her into the house.

  Clive popped out of the parlor, wearing a smile. “How was…” He frowned and took in their expressions. Then he narrowed his eyes. “You returned together?”

  Garrick ushered Nora into the parlor, was attentive enough to show her to a chair, and then turned to Clive. “We’re getting married.”

  “Who’s getting married?” Clive asked, further concerned.

  Garrick looked at her and lifted a brow.

  Nora knew she should be concentrating on the seriousness of the situation, but with Garrick’s gaze fixed on her in the way that it was, it was hard for her not to think about how they’d gotten into this situation in the first place. The kiss. The best kiss of her life.

  His expression, which had seemed sort of tired before, livened and darkened. He hummed with need, and she knew she couldn’t have taken a worse husband.

  Why couldn’t she despise him? Why did he have to be so handsome? Why did he have to care for her safety and allow Miriam to read to him? Why did he have to want her as much as he did?

  It would be a disaster in the end, because she would love him, and he would never love her. He would be unfaithful, and she would have to share him. Even now, her heart couldn’t bear it.

  Few feelings were worse than the emotions running through her.

  * * *

  Garrick thought to take a step back as Nora’s eyes shifted from lust to despair. He’d done this to them. He’d promised Nora anything and at her strange request, he hadn’t said no. He hadn’t warned her about his family. He hadn’t told her that nothing was at it seemed in the Blanc household and that Ebba had always been a convincing liar. That she would play Lady Macbeth, that it was likely his uncle had assigned her the task of trapping him in marriage in exchange for permission for her to pursue her dream as an actress didn’t surprise him.

  He should have told Nora, warned her of the consequences. He hadn’t been sure, however. There had only been a nagging at the back of his mind.

  Touch her and ruin everything.

  Touch her and have everything.

  In the seconds it took him to go over her request, he’d known what could possibly happen and, like a man addicted to the tables, he’d rolled his dice and hadn’t been sure of what to hope for.

  Her kiss lured him like forbidden fruit, and he’d added taking her, claiming her, to his endlessly growing list of sins.

  It had been little surprise to find his family and their guests standing at the door, watching his claiming of Nora. He’d o
nly been thrown into the reality of the situation when Nora went weak next to him.

  She hadn’t known. She’d been unaware of the true consequences of their kiss. She’d trusted Ebba. She’d trusted his family and they’d betrayed her, not him. Garrick knew better than to trust Uncle Alex with such matters. When it came to Garrick’s life, Uncle Alex would indeed fall on a sword for him, but with anything else, the earl was likely to do what he thought was right even when it was terribly wrong.

  The right thing to do, the best thing to do, would be to keep his distance from Nora. He would marry her, of course. They had no choice. Miriam’s reputation had to be considered. However, while Garrick could save them from this situation, touching Nora would only soil her soul.

  Yet touch her he would. He felt like the worst sort of man to admit that he would not keep his hands from his wife. He would not allow her to live her life as she pleased. He’d have her underneath him, over him, beside him, any and every way he could take her, and he’d use every wicked skill he had to ensure she would be willing every night.

  He was a terrible human being. A sinner. It was appalling how anxious he was to place his filth-ridden hands on her pure skin. It was egregious how much doing that very thing excited him. To do so seemed far more heinous than anything he’d done with the women at the brothel.

  The brothel. He needed to get out of his agreement with Luke. He needed to sever his ties with that place. He would no longer have need of it. Nora would be his warm haven. His sweet oblivion. He’d be her protector. In that one deed, he would be a saint, but in every other way, he’d be shameful, using her body for his own pleasure, yet all the while making certain she enjoyed their depravity just as much as he did. He’d blacken her soul. The debauchery excited him.

  Nora’s lips parted, and she lost some of her color. Could she see just how lewd his thoughts had gone?

  “Well,” Clive said as he tried to break through the tension. “Congratulations seem appropriate. Are they?” he inquired tentatively.

  Garrick was certain he should say no, because what would take place between him and Nora wasn’t just a marriage, but a funeral, the death of her innocence, and a leap into darkness.

  ∫ ∫ ∫

  3 1

  * * *

  “You can’t come in here.” Nora turned to look at Garrick as she stopped at the threshold of her room and prayed he didn’t press her for an invitation. She could barely hold back her desire. Even knowing she should be angry at having been manipulated just over an hour ago, her lust for Garrick burned every other emotion to ash.

  He leaned against the doorpost and gave her his famed look, the one that made the knees of every girl over a certain age weak. They said that Lucifer had been beautiful. For some reason, she couldn’t help but compare them at this moment. His eyes were so beautiful. She’d called them precious pools and tonight, she wanted to undress and bathe in their heat.

  He grinned, and she thought it a look of pure deviance. “I’m leaving.”

  “Leaving? Where are you going?”

  “Home. I won’t be sleeping here.”

  She didn’t know where home was for him. She almost asked if he intended to move her into the brothel with him but managed to say something else. “Just so you’re aware, I’m not having an affair.”

  “I know.” His eyes held belief. Clive had apparently been right about his jealousy, an idea that still baffled her. “That is why I am going home.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  His eyes shone wickedly. “Invite me in.”

  Her body locked, and she held her breath and placed a hand over her heart in an effort to hold back giving him her soul, because he was looking at her as though he wanted more than her body. She’d be nothing when he was done with her. “No.” Her voice was a low whisper.

  “Then I shall leave. That way, I can obey what you say with your mouth and ignore what I see in your eyes.”

  Her cheeks grew hot. “I suppose this could be worse. I could think you a monster.”

  He barely took a breath. “Perhaps, you should.”

  She thought so, too, though she wondered why he agreed. She didn’t dare ask why. “I’ll tell Miriam in the morning.”

  He straightened. “I wish to be there.”

  She frowned. “Why? Does her opinion matter to you?” The inquiry was genuine.

  “Yes,” he said. “I like her. I want her to like me.”

  That was not what Nora wanted or needed to hear and yet it was. Why couldn’t he be a villain? Why did he have to say words that would make her adore him?

  “And, as my wife, you’ll be unable to stop me from helping you with whatever is going on.” His gaze hardened. “I’ll not have my family in danger.”

  She said what she could to turn his mind in another direction. “Your pleasantness doesn’t help my efforts to see you as a monster.”

  He stepped one foot over the threshold, reached out, tilted up her chin, and kissed her. The kiss was quick but still sweet and full of heat as his tongue filled her wet and waiting mouth. Then he pulled away and grinned. “Goodnight.”

  She closed the door the moment he turned away.

  Tomorrow, she and Garrick would talk to her daughter, but tonight, Nora would have a talk with herself. No matter how much she wanted to hope that everything between her and Garrick would be wonderful, the reality was that few things in her life had been wonderful. Her brother had an obsession with blondes, and she’d helped him find his victims. Nathan had died young, leaving Miriam without a father. She’d been a servant for a very wonderful family, but a servant, nonetheless. Why then, should she allow herself to hope for more? She wouldn’t, she told herself, yet as she laid down that night, she buried her face where Garrick had slept days ago and breathed deeply of his scent. It was still there, either that or her mind could recall those special notes and bring them to memory for her personal pleasure.

  She was doomed.

  * * *

  Garrick walked into the garden the next morning, took one look at Miriam’s brightening expression, and knew she knew. He held back a growl as he approached her and her mother.

  Nora was holding Miriam back with a firm hand on the girl’s shoulder. She also spoke before Miriam could. “Clive told her.”

  Garrick took note of the information just as much as he noticed that she hadn’t called him Lord Clive or Fawley. Their engagement was finally getting her to relax. He thought that one good thing to report to Kent and Lucy upon their return, especially since he’d failed in so many other ways.

  He’d kissed their governess publicly and was now stealing Nora from their home.

  Why did that bring him so much pleasure?

  Miriam popped onto her feet and approached him. “Is it true what Uncle Clive said?” Her eyes shined with open glee. “Are you going to be my new papa?”

  Papa?

  His heart stuttered.

  Miriam had always been a very affectionate girl. She’d taken to the people in her life easily. She trusted easily. Too easily, the men had decided. She needed special attention and protection. Her uncles had all volunteered for the position.

  She gave of herself freely. She’d never met a stranger. Everyone she met became her most trusted and deepest friend. Of course, she liked some more than others. George, she adored.

  Honestly, Garrick had feared the girl’s disappointment. Wouldn’t she rather have had one of the other men for a father? One who would talk to her and read to her properly without long stutters and pauses?

  He’d thought she’d have preferred Clive, actually. She loved Clive, he knew. Yet the smile she gave him was genuine. Her eyes held a purity that reminded him of her mother.

  And she wanted him as her papa. He could never replace her father, he knew, but he would always be there for her.

  Nora tried to pull her daughter back. She looked worried. He hadn’t spoken. “Miriam, perhaps Lord Coalwater would prefer for you to call him something more forma
l.”

  The girl looked broken by the very idea. No one forbid Miriam from anything.

  “No,” Garrick said.

  “No?” Miriam asked, looking between her mother and him.

  Garrick touched her shoulder. He wasn’t actually sure how much Miriam understood signing, but he tried, “I would love for you to call me Papa.”

  She did the sign for father. She understood. She smiled. Then she wrapped her arms around his middle. “This is the most wonderful thing ever!”

  He bent and wrapped his arms around her and only partly agreed with her. Now that Miriam had honored him with one of the greatest titles a man could hold, things would have to change. He would have to teach her that the world was not always a safe place, that there were people in it who would hurt her without thinking twice.

  She had to learn to be a little less trusting, but he didn’t want to change her too much. She’d be safe with him. No one would touch her. He’d destroy anyone who dared.

  He looked over at Nora, saw the tears in her eyes, and signed, “We need to talk.”

  Nora pulled in a long breath and nodded. “Miriam, could you leave Garrick and I alone for a moment, please.”

  Miriam finally let go of Garrick and asked him, “Can we read later?”

  He nodded and smiled.

  She returned the expression and moved away, taking his heart with her. She settled on a blanket that sat under her favorite tree. Monica waited for her. On days like this, when the air was warmer than usual and the sun was bright, they were rarely inside.

  Nora said, “Clive confessed to telling her at breakfast. He said it came about by accident.”

  Garrick sat next to her with his back to Miriam. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  She blinked. “I just told you. Clive told—”

  “I don’t mean Miriam and you know it.”

  She turned away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  With his back to Miriam creating a wall to keep her out, he placed a bold hand on Nora’s thigh and then began to inch it higher.

  Her breath rushed from her, and she grabbed his hand to still him. Her eyes rounded. “What are you doing?”