by Sophia Nash
“I told you she was amusing,” Hope said ruefully.
Isabelle squeezed Roxanne’s hand again and then spoke. “I think he is partial to no one, actually.”
Roxanne relaxed.
“Botheration,” Mary Haverty said. “That’s nonsense. I think he likes you, Miss Barclay.”
Roxanne started. “What makes you say such a thing?”
“He thinks no one notices, but he could not keep his eyes from straying toward you during supper. Did not one of the rest of you notice?”
“It’s only because we are cousins,” Roxanne insisted.
“And when did that stop anyone from marrying in this day and age?” Mary came about in front of her, blocking her path. “Are you fond of your cousin, Miss Barclay?”
Isabelle interrupted Roxanne before she could form a reply. “You do not have to answer that, Tatiana.”
“What a lovely name. Tatiana,” Mary Haverty ruminated. “It’s one of my own middle names.”
“Well, I usually go by Harriet,” Roxanne said, grabbing the chance to be contrary.
Hope began to laugh and finally Isabelle joined in.
“Are you laughing at me?” Roxanne looked from side to side.
“Not at all,” Mary said, chuckling. “You see, I just knew we were all going to be friends. And Isabelle? Do you still fancy Candover?”
“Mary, stop,” Hope said, laughing all the harder. “You cannot do this. It’s the reason most ladies cannot form a friendship with you. You cannot be so direct.”
“I don’t see why not. Gentlemen behave in the same way behind our backs. They scratch their, ahem, breeches, and talk of nothing but cards, horses, and”—she paused for effect—“breeding. Why can we not do the same? Minus the scratching of course.”
“Of course,” said Hope trying to catch her breath.
Roxanne did not know what to make of this beautiful, outrageously honest creature in front of her. She wanted so much to dislike her and yet she also wanted to be just like her. She looked at Isabelle and shrugged. “Lady Mary—”
“Please, if we are to be intimate friends, let’s dispense with the formalities.”
“All right. Here is a question, Mary. What are your ideas regarding gentlemen and their thoughts concerning the fairer sex?”
“Oh, that is easy. Gentlemen are the simplest creatures on earth. They are ruled by lust, not any finer sensibilities. And they either fall all over themselves spouting ridiculous romantic love poems or they are devastating and silent. Some use their charm and wit to excite. But every type might or might not truly be in love with you. And you will never be sure if they really adore you for yourself or not—especially if you possess beauty or a fortune.”
“We do not feel sorry for you,” Isabelle said dryly.
Mary laughed. “I don’t expect you to, Isabelle. I have tried to tell you many times that I have no interest in James. I don’t know why you choose to disbelieve me.”
Isabelle grumbled, “I only dislike you because he thinks he likes you.”
“I’ve never thought he does,” Mary replied. “But you must admit I do nothing to encourage him. Shall I eat raw garlic and breathe on him?”
“Would you?” Isabelle said, hope threading her tone.
“If you would pretend to like me. I’ve found that if you pretend a feeling for a while it sometimes grows into the truth.”
The lady was not only the most beautiful lady on earth, she was also the most accomplished wit Roxanne had ever encountered. It was impossible to find fault with her. “May I ask you something else, Mary?”
“Anything, dearest,” Mary replied. “Did you notice I managed to please you by not mentioning either of your two names?”
“Stop!” Hope giggled.
Roxanne ignored her. She just had to know the answer to this question. “How do you know if or when a gentleman loves you?” This was as close as she could come to asking something so close to her heart.
Mary stopped and gazed toward the stars. “Ah, that is easy. You will know by his actions first. The all-important three words most women long to hear come much later. But the real question is how to know exactly when a man stops loving you. I learned this the hard way. In fact, they would rather chew off their own hand than ever admit their ardor had cooled toward a lady they formerly adored. They will just slowly pull away from you. First they will stop calling on you, then they will put in only a late appearance to any entertainment they think you will attend, and finally they might very well retreat to the country. The last blow will be when you hear a house party has been formed without you. Within a fortnight, an engagement will be announced. This will be the same gentleman who professed his undying love for you and asked you to wait for him.” Her voice became a whisper at the end.
It was so silent after Mary’s speech that only summer crickets could be heard on the Mount.
“I’m so sorry,” Isabelle murmured.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mary said. “Perhaps it will serve as a lesson for the rest of you.”
“If any gentleman can part with you, what hope is there for the rest of us?” Candover’s sister bowed her head dejectedly.
“Silly goose,” Mary continued, and relinked her arm with Hope’s. “You are too smart to let anyone fool you with false promises. And besides”—she smiled—“you have a brother who would gladly slay any man who dares to hurt you.”
“I wish I had had a brother,” Roxanne inserted. “Not that I do not appreciate my devoted cousin.”
She could not add that a pretend cousin was not at all like a brother. And worse, he appeared devoted only occasionally. The rest of the time he made it perfectly clear that while he might rarely choose to kiss her, or help her since it amused him, he would never ever lose his heart to anyone.
Why should she care, anyway? Nothing could ever come of it. And Roxanne would be gone within a week or less if everything worked in her favor. He was doing her a great kindness actually by offering comfort, protection, an occasional kiss when she demanded, revenge when she did not, and an emotional wall between them that was as high as the cliffs at Kynance Cove.
And that was why she could do the one thing that she should not do.
Tonight.
Before she lost her nerve.
Chapter 12
Alex’s intuition had served him well his entire life. It had saved his neck when he was fifteen and he had begged Mémé to leave Mont-Saint-Michel with his brother the night before they had originally planned. It had saved his life many times over when he had assumed a new name and joined the Hussars under Napoleon from the age of sixteen to nineteen, before he had escaped to England. It had not served well only once—the night he had been captured by the Portuguese.
Tonight, however, it appeared his intuition would not serve him well once again. He had been certain Roxanne would seek him out. And so he had excused himself from the boredom of the after-dinner entertainments and had retired early to his apartments.
He was grateful his valet was in London so he could enjoy the solitude of undressing in peace. It was strange. He was coming to like the quiet of the Mount. The ceaseless rush of the waves and the rhythm of the tides. His sleep was never disturbed by the sounds of hooves on cobblestones, or curses from inebriated drivers, or revelers in London. He shook his head. He refused to like rustication.
It was impossible.
It was too much like before.
He examined his pocket watch and then laid it on the marble table near the massive mahogany bed in his chamber. He had decided he would not go to comfort her. That way led to temptation and complete disaster.
But he would not turn her away if she came to him. Yet, if she did come, he could not do what he dreamed of doing every sodding moment. She was far too vulnerable at this moment, even if she displayed a cool front.
He had wanted to throttle that idiot Paxton. Frigid? Roxanne frigid? Why, she was the most open and passionate female he had ever encountered—when she
chose. Everything about her left him wanting more. But she would only scoff if he suggested it. It would seem as if he were lying to her to assuage her finer sensibilities. She would disbelieve him and tell him to go—
He cocked his head toward the door and then set aside the crashing bore of a book—Cows of Southwest England—that had served far better as an attempted-murder weapon. Footsteps. He had heard footsteps.
He flung back the bedcovers, swung into his dark dressing robe, and crossed to the exit.
He paused, listening, and then opened his door.
Roxanne stood there, in the simple pale blue satin gown she had worn that evening, her clenched hand raised. “I didn’t knock,” she insisted.
“All right,” he agreed. “And I didn’t open the door. Do you want to speak to me or not?”
She looked up and down each side of the corridor. “Yes, but not in the hallway.”
“Then how about in here?” He grasped her clenched hand and pulled her into his room. He closed and locked the door.
She glanced toward the huge bed and then took several steps to sit on the stool in front of his dressing table. She took up his shaving soap brush and stroked the inside of her other hand. “What did he mean?” Her eyes did not meet his.
He didn’t pretend to not understand. “He is un imbécile.”
“Please answer the question.” She lifted her huge eyes and tilted her head back, her pride in evidence. “There’s no one else I can ask.”
He drew up a side chair, and helped her turn on the stool to face the looking glass. He carefully extracted the first two pins from her simple coiffure. “It refers to a woman who lacks ardor.” He exhaled and spit out the rest. “Or cannot find completion.”
She remained silent as he pulled more pins from her hair. He glanced over her slim shoulder to see her cast-down eyes in the looking glass.
“You,” he continued evenly, “do not suffer from what he suggested. He is an idiot, as I said. A complete fool. He shall be found out ere long.”
“How do you know?” Her eyes met his in the reflection of the looking glass.
“Because idiots never get away with—”
“You know what I was referring to—how do you know I’m not what he said?”
Lord, he had hoped she wouldn’t ask. “I know because I know you.” He combed his fingers through her loosened locks and removed a final pin. He pushed aside her curtain of hair and gently kissed a pulse point on the side of her neck.
“I’m always cold,” she muttered. “My feet are like icicles in bed, even during the summer.”
“That’s because you’re a long, tall glass of water. It takes far longer for your blood to circulate to the tips of your toes than a short, stout female. And actually, I suffer from a similar condition. I know it’s shocking but I will admit that I sometimes wear woolen stockings to bed.”
“You had better not be lying to me,” she murmured. “I need you to explain the other thing you said—the part about completion.”
“Um . . . did not your mother ever discuss with you—”
“My mother died when I was ten. Of a lung complaint.”
“All right,” he said, massaging her head. “If a female cannot find completion . . . well, it is sometimes said—”
“Completion? Completion in what?”
He opened his mouth even though he had no idea what he would say.
She continued for him. “You mean if the husband is so repulsed he cannot finish the act?”
“No,” he whispered. “That’s not it. Roxanne, you are just going to have to take my word for it. You are not frigid. You are just the opposite. You had it right. You had a lying, murderous clod for a husband. We both know it. Do not be a fool by believing anything he says.”
She dropped her head down, and her long blond hair fell forward and shone in the candlelight.
He couldn’t stop himself from stroking her head again. That one sign of tenderness revived her.
She swiveled on the stool and faced him. “But I didn’t particularly care about what he did to me—what husbands and wives do. It didn’t repulse me, you understand. It was just a routine activity, rather like candlemaking.”
Alex coughed.
“And I assumed he didn’t really give much thought to it either for he rarely came to me, if what the midwife confided to me was true. So I agree he was at fault just as much as I for not conceiving a child.”
“Yes,” he said. “I think we already agreed that a man who prefers plants to women is a . . . Need I say it again?”
She was silent for a while and he retrieved the shaving-soap brush from her stiff fingers.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I only have one last question.”
“Yes?” He wasn’t sure how much more restraint he had. All this talk of completion and finishing and dipping candles . . . well, it was a good thing his robe concealed far more than his breeches ever had in her presence. He wanted to pounce on her and ravage her and prove to her that there was not an ounce of frigid in her lovely bones.
“If you insist I’m not what he said I was, then why do you find it so easy to keep your distance from me right now?”
“You keep reminding me you are married.”
“And you keep reminding me I am dead.”
She stood up suddenly from the stool. He slowly rose from his chair until she was forced to tilt her head back to stare into his face.
The candle flickered, and her golden hair shimmered in the low light. He cupped her face with one hand, and her waist with the other—and began walking her backward toward the door. He could not take her. No matter what she said. But he would not make her feel worse by suggesting she was vulnerable.
When they were two steps from the door he stopped.
“You know,” she whispered, “you are ruining your hard-earned reputation by turning me away.”
He searched her face long and hard. “Perhaps I’m just shortsighted,” he murmured.
“Well, I’m farsighted. I think you wanted to go in the other direction,” she said, urging him backward toward his bed.
And then, he lost any chance of a witty retort when she reached for the belt of his robe.
God, she had no idea what she was doing. Her knees were shaking uncontrollably. She had never behaved in such an outrageous manner in all her life. It was wicked to speak and act in this fashion. And yet . . .
And yet, she thought she might just very well shrivel up and fade away if she didn’t do this. Tonight. With this man.
She was going away. But she would do this and then go away. And she would take this memory with her. It would mean very little to him. Just one more female in a long string of ladies. Maybe, the last one before he chose a wife. And this, most certainly, would be her last chance at intimacy before she moved to a remote corner of Scotland, where there was certain to be more gossip over who did what, when, where, and with whom than in the sprawling villages of Cornwall.
She had unknotted his belt. And with that movement he had repositioned her so that her back was to the bed. She forced herself to be bold. To do what she had seen the maid do to the stable master behind the hayrick. She ran her hands inside his charcoal velvet robe to circle his narrow, rock-hard hips and finally rested her fingers on his back. His muscles tensed through the fine linen of his nightshirt. A breath hissed out of him as she tucked herself inside his robe. He was so warm and she was so cold. Her body drank in his heat.
A moment later she felt his fingers and hands move to the short puffed sleeves of her evening gown. He eased down the wisp of satin and dipped to kiss her shoulder.
Oh, he was going to do it again. He was going to touch and kiss her breasts, something she had relived in the solitude of her bed almost every night since that evening by the pond. She had never felt anything like it. Just the memory of it left her dizzy with longing.
The stillness of the night was disturbed only by their breathing.
He eventually lifted his hea
d and searched her face from half-shuttered eyes. She felt his fingers working the row of tiny unseen buttons on the back of her gown.
“Don’t know why people ever complain about buttons,” he murmured, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “It’s all in the waiting, don’t you agree?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she whispered, breathless.
He winked, and pulled apart the edges of her gown until it fell open to her waist. “Mmmm,” he murmured, plucking at the ties of her corset, loosening them.
She wasn’t sure why the prickle of mortification tickled her. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her small breasts. It was just that before he had eased them above her corset and gown, making them appear larger than they were. She had always been painfully embarrassed by her coltish figure. Her father had always told her she was the son he had never had whenever he had seen her climbing trees and clamoring down into a mine.
Oh, a flurry of thoughts was getting in the way of living this moment. She turned her eyes away from his shoulder to meet his gaze straight on.
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” she lied.
“Nothing good I can see,” he said with a lazy smile. “Do you know what I’ve dreamed about?”
She looked away. “No.” Certainly it was not about a scarecrow figure of a woman’s body.
“Your back.” His hands turned her body so she was facing the bed. At the same moment she heard the sound of his heavy robe hitting the carpet. “You can tell a lot about a woman by her back. And you have this way of holding yourself. As if you could balance a book on each shoulder and waltz across a ballroom. I want to see it,” he growled. He pulled the final lace from the corset and flung it to the other side of the room. A moment later he managed to disengage her arms from her shift and now she was bare to the waist, and colder than she’d ever been in her life. Her nipples hurt, they were so tight.
His hot palm traced the length of her spine and she shivered.
“Are you chilled, Roxanne?” Without waiting for an answer, he urged her body forward onto the plush draping of the huge bed.
