Christy English - [Shakespeare in Love 02]

by Love on a Midsummer Night

  Pembroke reached for the cut glass filled with brandy, but instead of drinking it, he tossed the liquor onto the fire.

  The coals flared for a moment, then died down again. All Arabella could hear was the ticking of the clock in the hall and the sound of her own heart beating.

  “It doesn’t matter what you say, Arabella. I will never strike you. You know that, don’t you?”

  She watched him closely, as a snake might watch its charmer. She stared at him, at the hard contours of his face, at the sky blue of his eyes. “I know that,” she said. “I don’t know why I tried to tempt you.”

  He smiled then, and a little of his old light came back into his eyes, if only for a moment. “You meant to test me, before we go any further down the road to Derbyshire. Know this, Arabella, because you no longer know me. I am not my father. I am not yours.”

  “I know you, Raymond. Sometimes I think I am the only one who does.”

  He laughed at that, and the derision in his voice was worse than a beating, like acid on her skin. “You know nothing about me but the rumors you’ve heard. I am just the fool you left for a rich duke, a boy you never thought of again.”

  She wanted to say, I did think of you. I do think of you. But she said nothing, she did not speak of the letters she had sent, swallowing her words as she might swallow poison. It was many years too late to try to make amends now. She saw in the hard planes of his face, all light fled from his eyes, that he would not listen to an apology, even if she knew how to give him one.

  He rose to his feet, and she did the same. The fire was beginning to go out.

  “It has been a long day, and we have a long day of travel ahead of us tomorrow,” was all he said.

  Arabella tried to offer a smile and failed. She spoke some polite nonsense, as she sometimes had as a girl, when she thought to diffuse a bad situation, when she thought to deflect her father’s wrath. “The bed is very fine. A thick quilt and a deep feather mattress. I will be a sight more comfortable than you will be here on this settle.”

  Pembroke must have heard the fear beneath her foolish words. He attempted a smile, and though it did not reach his eyes, his attempt was better than hers. “I have slept on worse. You need not concern yourself about me.”

  She had reached the end of her strength. She needed the deep peace that only sleep could bring, the one fortress that her father, her husband, even Hawthorne had not been able to breach.

  “I bid you good night,” she said. She crossed the room, but something made her turn back at the door. Pembroke was watching her with no hint of lust or anger on his face, without even a hint of old pain. He simply looked tired to the bone, as she was.

  “You are safe, Arabella. No matter what we have lost, no matter what once passed between us, you will always be safe with me.”

  Eight

  In spite of the tension of the day just past, Arabella fell at once into a deep sleep. That night, just as she had the night before, she dreamed.

  Moonlight filtered in from an unseen window, covering the bedclothes with soft, creamy light. In the dream, she lay in bed in her husband’s house. She knew in the dream that her husband was dead, but in the sleep of night, this was not foul news. She was widowed and free with no specter of Hawthorne looming over her. But as she lay on the feather bed in her husband’s house, she knew that she was not alone.

  Pembroke stepped out of the shadows dressed in the same clothes he had worn the night she had first come to him. His black evening clothes blended with the darkness of the room as the moonlight picked up the bright white of his cravat and the gold embroidery on his waistcoat.

  He said nothing but moved to stand beside the bed where she lay unmoving, as if caught under a spell. She was not afraid, but the rational part of her mind knew that she must send him away. If she asked him to, Pembroke would go. No matter how dissipated he had become, he would never force himself on any woman.

  Though the moonlight was dim, in the dream she could see the deep blue of his eyes. They had always reminded her of a clear summer sky, the color of the sky the summer she fell in love with him. There was no pain between them, no awkwardness. It was as if all of that had been washed away. Pembroke sat beside her on the bed. The feather mattress shifted under his weight so that she was forced to sit up and catch herself or else roll into him.

  He did not move to touch her even then.

  Arabella leaned close, reaching for him. He caught her hand in his, his great paw closing around her fingers and palm so that they disappeared. Surrounded by his warmth, her hand began to tingle. She leaned closer to him still and took in the scent of cinnamon, the inexplicable sweetness his skin always seemed to bear. Arabella would never have had the courage to do such a thing in waking life, but she knew even as she drew closer to Pembroke that she still dreamed.

  She pressed her free hand against his cheek. Beneath her fingertips, his skin was rough where his fair beard had begun to grow back in. She could not see the flush of color come into his face, but she could feel the warmth of it. She scooted closer still and pressed her lips to that same cheek.

  His arms came around her then, very carefully, as if she were made of spun glass. He did not jostle or startle her but drew her against his chest, so that she could hear the soft beating of his heart. The heavy feel of his arms around her, of his weight against her, was nothing like her elderly husband’s thin arms and spindly frame. Though she was no longer a maid and had not been a maid for ten years, she felt as if she were a virgin once more, sitting tucked safe in Pembroke’s arms on those soft white sheets.

  Though she felt lost and at sea, she was not afraid as she had been on her real wedding night. She was safe, and she knew it, for Pembroke was with her.

  “I would like to kiss you, if you will permit me.”

  Arabella laughed a little under her breath. He had never sounded so formal in her life, but this was a dream, and she did not want to wake. She savored the feel of his body against hers, warmth beginning to rise between her thighs.

  She had never felt such a thing before, not even when she was a girl and happy. Pembroke had only kissed her once that summer, the same afternoon he had given her his mother’s ring. She had been transported by the feel of his lips on hers. It had been so long ago that she could not now remember what it felt like to be kissed by a man she loved, by a man she had chosen.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Pembroke leaned down then, holding her effortlessly, his strength cradling her as if she were an egg that might crack. His bright blue eyes were on hers, watching her face steadily, in case she might change her mind. She did not move to touch him but waited quietly as his lips descended on hers.

  She closed her eyes and felt their feather touch, as light as down, and as soft. She sighed, opening her mouth beneath his, and he pressed his lips against hers, harder this time, as if he might devour her. She gasped at the onslaught, and he drew back a little, as if afraid that he had offended her.

  “No,” she said. She took hold of his shoulders and drew him down to her once more. This time it was her lips on his, her mouth that moved beneath him, clumsily but with enthusiasm. Her husband had kissed her only rarely and never well. She had never truly learned for she and Pembroke had been engaged only for one night.

  He smiled against her mouth and leaned down again to kiss her in earnest. Pembroke was still careful to draw her out slowly, but his lips moved over hers with such lazy experience, with such sensuous skill that she found almost at once that she had lost her breath.

  He instructed her with the motion of his lips until she followed suit and kissed him as he had been kissing her. Then he ran his tongue along the edge of her mouth, sucking on her lower lip until she opened up to him. He plundered her mouth then, and for the first time she felt the ragged edge of his control. The sense of it did not frighten her but made the warmth in her body tighten, its lang
uid heat turning into hunger. She was not certain what she was hungry for, but she knew that Pembroke would sate it.

  Arabella gasped, coming fully awake as she heard the maid dropping coal into the grate. She listened as the woman moved about beyond the curtains of her bed, her hand pressed against her chest as if she might stop the erratic beating of her heart.

  The dream lived with her, its vivid contours making her blush even as she lay alone, unseen by anyone. Never in her life had she felt such liquid warmth, such seductive heat. She wondered if such a thing was real or if she might find such sensations only in a dream. She shivered as the maid opened the curtains of her bed.

  “Good morning, m’am. The gentleman is up already. Do you need help dressing?”

  “No, thank you. Just some tea and breakfast brought into the parlor. We will be on the road early this morning.”

  “Yes, m’am.” The girl curtseyed, showing no sign of judgment or censure, though no doubt she thought that Pembroke had spent the night in that same bed. Very likely the staff of that inn had seen a great deal where Pembroke was concerned. She wondered if he had ever brought Titania there, if he had ever brought the actress to his home in the country. Jealousy prodded her spleen, and she pushed it away.

  She dressed quickly in the gown from the day before, straightening its dark blue muslin into some semblance of order. She drew her hair from its night braid and brushed it out quickly before drawing it into a bun at the nape of her neck. A few stray wisps escaped her pins, but she liked the way they framed her face, so she let them be. She had never been a beauty, not even in the full flush of her youth, but that day, with the heightened color in her cheeks and the hint of freedom on the road before her, Arabella smiled at her reflection and was satisfied.

  Before she allowed her traveling bag to be taken downstairs, she reached into the bottom for the box hidden there and took out a small velvet bag. She drew it out carefully, almost reverently. She untied the ribbons that bound it closed and opened her palm to catch the only piece of jewelry inside it.

  Though she had been a duchess for ten years, her husband had given her few jewels. Her wedding band still rested on her finger, but the other pieces he had given her, a strand of pearls, a brooch of jet, had all been left behind in London. She did not feel as if they truly belonged to her.

  Arabella stared down at the ring that rested in her palm. It was the only piece of jewelry she had ever loved.

  The ring Pembroke had given her gleamed gold in the light of the fire. She kept it well polished, so it looked as new as the day he had placed it on her hand.

  On her wedding day, she had hidden it away so that her father and her husband would not see it. She drew it out only rarely, for it was a piece of her past that never failed to pierce her heart.

  She slipped the ring onto her hand, and its ruby caught the light. She kissed it once, furtively, before drawing it off again. Instead of hiding it in the velvet bag, she drew a ribbon from her hair box, a thin ribbon of light pink silk, a color she had always loved but had never worn. She slipped that ribbon through the ring and tied it fast before drawing it around her neck. The ring lay against her heart, between her small breasts. She pressed it once between her palm and her heartbeat, then slipped it inside her bodice where it would be hidden from all eyes, even her own. The high collar of her gown concealed the ribbon completely.

  She knew she must in all honor give the ring back. It had been his mother’s, and no doubt, in spite of his wild ways, Pembroke would marry one day. He would want to give that ring to the bride he had chosen. She could not in good conscience keep it. Once they were at Pembroke House, safe in Derbyshire, she would give it back to him.

  Nine

  The journey into Derbyshire took another two days. Pembroke sat across from Arabella in his traveling chaise, taking the occasional sip from his brandy flask.

  He found that he needed less and less of the stuff to keep his hands from trembling. He wondered if his dependence on the alcohol lived in his mind as much as his body. The first night alone in the sitting room at the inn had been the hardest.

  He knew his own weakness and despised it. He had given up brandy once before while on campaign. He had done so to stay alive long enough to watch Anthony Carrington’s back when they were at war. Life without brandy had not been worth living. He wondered if he would be able to give it up now.

  He held the flask where Arabella could see it because it irritated her to watch him drink. She eyed him from beneath her hideous bonnet, moving her gaze between the scenery beyond the window and him.

  Pembroke wondered where she had acquired her distaste for alcohol. Her father had not been much of a drinker. Old Mr. Swanson had come straight into his fortune from the slave trade in the West Indies and had never needed the liquor to make him a violent man. His reputation for striking servants had covered the county. Pembroke wondered how often he had raised his hand to his daughter.

  Arabella sat as calm and still as a church mouse, the black crepe of her veil pushed back over the brim so that he could see her face. Since he did not want to look her in the eye, instead he watched the curve of her throat, the fall of her hands in her lap, where they lay encased in black cotton gloves. She had not completely left off her mourning, though if he had his way, she would give up her hideous black before the week was out.

  Of course, he had never gotten his way where she was concerned. Why he thought that he might now was a mystery to him.

  He spoke without thinking. He knew only that he could not endure another moment of the silence.

  “So you will give up your mourning?” he asked.

  Arabella turned to him, the wings of her bonnet making her face him straight on. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You didn’t love your husband. You aren’t sorry he’s dead. So why wear black when you look so terrible in it?”

  He almost wished his words back. For one hideous moment, he thought she might cry. But then he saw that the gleam in her eyes was not tears but barely repressed fury.

  “You have no right to speak to me in such a manner.”

  “I’m the one saving you from a fate worse than death. I think that gives me plenty of rights where you’re concerned.”

  “I beg to differ, my lord.”

  “I have always wanted to hear you beg. Somehow, I thought it would sound sweeter.”

  She was almost spitting in her rage. She breathed deeply, her beautiful breasts rising and falling beneath the blue gown she wore and the hideous black bombazine of her cloak. He wanted to peel the crepe and silk away and touch her as he had always longed to touch her, to feel her beneath him as he never had.

  Pembroke raised his flask and found that his hand was shaking. He knew this time it was not for need of drink, but he took a swig anyway.

  “You are a perfidious bastard.”

  The words seemed to slip from between her lips of their own accord, so incongruous and unladylike. Pembroke stared at her in shock, his flask forgotten. And then he laughed.

  “I absolutely agree with you. I can only hope for my mother’s sake that I am not my father’s son, though I fear on that count you are mistaken. More’s the pity.”

  She had shocked herself with her own words. He could see that in the sudden flush in her cheeks, in the quickness of her breath. If she were any other woman, he would have drawn her across his lap and let his hands and lips feast on her body. But she was a lady. And he was a blackguard and a cad, but he would never touch a woman against her will. He wondered if he could put his years of experience to the test, if he might seduce even her. Part of him wanted to reach for her and damn the consequences.

  Arabella stared at him. If looks could kill, he would lie bleeding across the velvet squabs of his coach. She reached up then with trembling fingers and untied the ribbons of her hideous black bonnet. She lowered the window beside her very deliberately.
The glass tried to stick at first, but she was determined, and the window finally gave way to her wrath. She took the black-dyed straw in one hand, crumpling it, forcing it through the window beside her.

  The chaise was traveling at a good clip, for his matched blacks were some of the best horses in the country. The wind of their passing took her bonnet, and it flew out of her black-gloved hands. He stared at her, wondering if he had lost his mind and was dreaming the entire thing, but then, her eyes snapping fire, she drew her gloves off and tossed them after her hat.

  Pembroke closed his flask and slipped it back into the pocket of his coat. He thought for a moment that he had swallowed his tongue with lust, but he found it still functional.

  “Might I help you with the rest of your gown? I’m not certain it will fit through that window.”

  He thought she might strike him then. He was sure her hand itched to slap the smug smile from his face. He could not take his gaze away from the cornflower blue of her eyes that seemed to flash silver in her ire. Her cheeks were pink, and he imagined that if he moved to sit beside her, if he pressed his fingertips to those cheeks, they would be warm beneath his touch.

  She reached for the top button of her gown and loosened it. She undid the second one, and then the third, until he could see the swell of her breasts beneath. She extended her hand to him, and he almost took it. But he did not, for she did not want him.

  “Your flask,” she said. “I would have a sip.”

  He drew it from his pocket and handed it to her, careful not to touch her bare fingers with his own. She took a swig as she had no doubt seen him do, the same practiced flair, the same smile after. Either she drank on the quiet, or she had been watching him very closely over the last two days.

  She offered the flask to him. “Thank you. You are rude and you are a thorn in my side, but you are right. I do not mourn my husband. I hate these clothes. I need new ones.”